New Zealand First is shocked Spanish firm Acciona is a ‘preferred bidder’ to help build the long overdue Warkworth to Puhoi Motorway that will likely end up being tolled.

“We have a government that is incapable of building houses and now it seems, roads,” says the Rt Hon Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First and Member of Parliament for Northland.

“So who on earth is doing the due-diligence in National given Acciona executives were arrested in Spain this year for corruption. Meanwhile the toll roads it has helped to build in Spain have gone bust.

“Several years ago, the UK’s Sunday Times reported that two of the firm’s senior executives were being investigated for the misappropriation of public funds, falsifying documents and of most concern, money laundering.

“As Member of Parliament for Northland, this is incompetence heaped upon incompetence because National continually over promises and under delivers.

“In 2009 ‘Mr Broke-it’ himself, Steven Joyce, told Parliament that the Wellsford to Puhoi motorway would be delivered by 2019. Yet here we are in 2016 and they haven’t even built a millimetre north of Puhoi that they have promised since 2009.

“Now National is talking 2022 but that’s only for half the job, being Puhoi to Warkworth. Aside from Mr Bridges knowing that this is not Northland but part of the Auckland Super City, half-baked aptly describes this underperforming Minister of Transport.

“Be under no illusion, any Private-Public Partnership means this will be a toll road given the Puhoi to Warkworth leg comes with a 25-year concession. Mr Bridges needs to come clean over when Northland will be connected and what role Acciona will play.

“Above all else, he must categorically rule out any direct or indirect donation Acciona may have made to National given its track record in funding political parties in both Canada and Australia,” Mr Peters said.

A press release from NZFirst August 1, 2016