Highland MSP Fergus Ewing wants the Scottish Government investigated over A9
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Inverness and Nairn MSP Fergus Ewing has heaped pressure on the Scottish Government over its failure to dual the A9 by calling for an inquiry into handling of the issue.
The move comes after he savaged its performance as a “betrayal of the people of the Highlands.”
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In issuing the call, Mr Ewing tore into the government’s “excuses” for saying it will not finish the programme by 2025, which he argues “created anger in the Highlands on a scale I have never seen in three decades in politics.”
Mr Ewing says that “an inquiry is now essential" because "the Scottish Government and Transport Scotland top brass must be held to account" and he listed "just some" of the questions that must be answered:
- The Scottish Government argues that Brexit and Covid caused problems. These excuses have caused real anger amongst people in the Highlands. Why precisely was Covid a problem since tendering is essentially an office job, Transport Scotland has a very large staff, and therefore their work should not have been impacted. Most of us carried on working during lockdown at home and using digital tech to hold meetings.
- How has Brexit prevented Transport Scotland from doing the job that the taxpayer pays them to do? To cite this as an excuse is surely a very weak argument.
- Why was there only one bidder left when the whole purpose of tendering is to attract competitive bids. What went wrong and why?
- In particular, why do Transport Scotland, unlike their counterparts in England pass risks to the contractor when these risks are shared in England. I understand these risks include unforeseen ground works and utility relocation.
- Why will it take until “Autumn” this year to publish a revised timetable for completion of the dualling project when Transport Scotland and the Scottish Government have already had nearly two years since the last Holyrood election to carry out this fairly routine task - one that I have called for since that election.
- What influence has the Green Party had behind the scenes on decision-making, since they oppose dualling, despite the number of people who have lost their lives in road traffic incidents on single carriageway sections of the A9?
- Will the Scottish Government now devote much more of their capital budget on the Dualling programme - and if not just how long would the dualling take?
He said: “Yesterday’s news of scrapping the Tomatin to Moy contract and re-tendering has created anger in the Highlands on a scale I have never seen in three decades in politics.
“I share that anger and am appalled that the Scottish Government and its agency Transport Scotland has failed to make any significant progress over the past four years in going ahead with the other sections which are now ready to be tendered and that the Tomatin to Moy section was left with only one bidder.
“It is obvious that there must now be a parliamentary inquiry into the handling of this and that Transport Scotland, Ministers and Government top officials must be called to explain why there has been such a lamentable performance.
“There is an opportunity to hold an Inquiry quickly, because of the Petition lodged by Laura Hansler calling for dualling of the A9. This will come before the Petitions committee on which I serve and I will, when it comes before us in the next few weeks, call for a Parliamentary Inquiry by a committee of the Scottish Parliament.
He added: “I believe there is substantial support for such an inquiry across parties.”
