Victoria City council is pushing ahead with Mayor Lisa Helps proposal to have an audit conducted on the Johnson Street Bridge project.
The new Johnson Street Bridge was Victoria’s largest infrastructure project in the city’s history, and while it’s beautiful and operational now, its construction was far from smooth.
Completed 3 years late on March 31, 2018, the Johnson Street Bridge rounded out its project at just over $105 million, a far cry from the project’s original $62.9 million budget.
Now, Mayor Lisa Helps is calling for an independent audit by the office of the Auditor General for Local Government (AGLG), and Victoria’s councillors have unanimously agreed.
The AGLG was created in 2012 with the introduction of the Auditor General for Local Government Act. The office aims to help improve local governments’ operations by providing third party performance audits, and making recommendations.
According to the act, AGLG exists “to conduct performance audits of the operations of local governments in order to provide local governments with objective information and relevant advice that will assist them in their accountability to their communities for the stewardship of public assets and the achievement of value for money in their operations.”
Back in February of this year, Helps had promised city watchdog group, the Grumpy Taxpayer$ of Greater Victoria, that an audit would be conducted.
