South Australian taxpayers will pay $69 million to private consortium SA Health Partnerships (SAHP) to settle claims for delays, modifications and unexpected remediation work at the new Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH).
The previously undisclosed figure was revealed in the auditor-general’s annual report tabled in State Parliament.
The confidential settlement was reached between the consortium and the State Government last month, after the Government decided to delay the $2 billion hospital’s opening from April until November 2016.
At the time, Health Minister Jack Snelling announced a much smaller payment to SAHP with a net cost to taxpayers of $34.3 million.
“What the Government have agreed to is to make a payment of $30 million to SAHP to settle all of those outstanding disputes,” Mr Snelling said on September 17.
Shadow Treasurer Rob Lucas said the much larger figure outlined in the auditor-general’s report now demonstrated the public had been misled.
“The AG has discredited completely the claim that Minister Snelling made that additional costs were $34 million,” he said.
“He’s made it clear that it’s double that and the Government needs to explain why we were misled back in September.”
But Mr Snelling denied the Government had set out to mislead — pointing out the delayed opening means taxpayers will be spared the $1 million a day cost of leasing the hospital for three months.
“At the end of the day the impact to the SA taxpayer of opening the hospital in November instead of April is $34.3 million,” he said.
The auditor-general’s report made it clear the $69 million payment to the consortium included “the state’s share of financing costs payable over the period the commercial acceptance date was extended”.