Reference is made to the article entitled ‘Victoria roads not included in roadworks list’ (TMID, 12 August).
The article is basing itself solely on the complaints being made by the Victoria Local Council, and as such is not accurate in its assumptions that the roads that this local council intended to resurface have been excluded.
The facts are as follows:
• Memo No 45/2010 issued by the Department for Local Government, which launched this scheme, was very clear in its statement that applications for this would be processed in the chronological order in which they were received by that same Department;
• The first tranche of roadworks approved and published was not exhaustive, and included the first 26 applications received for which funds have already been committed and respective Local Councils informed ;
• In fact, since then a further two Local Councils (Nos 27 and 28) have also had their applications processed, approved and the relative letters of commitment issued, bringing the total of roads scheduled for works under this scheme to 230 for 28 localities;
• The rest of the applications for this scheme, the success of which is amply proven by the positive response, and number of applications received, are being processed in the order in which they were received;
• The application from the Victoria Local Council for its intended roadworks was received 41st out of 48 applications in total;
• The application submitted by the Victoria Local Council will be processed in due course.
I am sure that your readers appreciate that the processing and evaluation of applications for public funds in the amounts which this scheme is catering for need to be done at the strictest levels of accountability. We are also conscious of the need for these works to be carried out as soon as possible for the benefit of our communities, and it was for this reason that the first tranche was published half way through the evaluation process. The Victoria Local Council may rest assured that once their application is due for evaluation, it will be subjected to the same objective and fair standards that were, and are being applied in all the applications.
Martin bugelli
Director General
(information, local government,
and public consultation)