A new road was laid in the remote Indigenous community of Bidyadanga in Western Australia a few weeks before it was dug up to install sewerage — then repaired at a cost of $50,000.
The West Australian Department for Communities has declined to be interviewed about the incident, instead providing a statement attributed to the assistant director general housing, Mr Greg Cash.
The statement confirmed that the cost of repairing the recently completed road was $50,000.
However, it said this was a rare instance in projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars across Western Australia in any given year.
"The Department usually lays the water, power and sewer services first, then builds the houses and installs the roads," the statement said.
The ABC has been told a company laid underground power and then a second company built the road over it.
The first company then returned to the community and dug up the road and curbing to lay sewer pipes, before a third company was brought into the community to repair the road.
'Conflicting work schedules'
The Department of Communities' statement blames "conflicting work schedules" and a clash between two separate Commonwealth programs for the extension of the road a few weeks before the sewerage was installed.
The ABC has spoken to a number of people from the Bidyadanga community, none of who wanted to speak on the record for fear of drawing criticism and missing out on future infrastructure projects.
The Department of Communities' statement said the $50,000 repair bill would not have a detrimental impacts on other remote community projects.
"The additional cost of this remediation work will be approximately $50,000. However, the project is still under budget and there is no detrimental impact on other budgets to deliver improvements to remote Aboriginal communities," the statement said.
Bidyadanga is Western Australia's largest Indigenous community, home to around 750 people on the state's north west coast, about 200 kilometres south of Broome.
In December 2016, the State Government announced that Bidyadanga was one of 10 Indigenous communities where services would be raised to be on par with other Australian towns.
The announcement was the culmination of a process that was initiated by former WA Premier Colin Barnett in 2012, when he said some Indigenous communities would have to close due to funding constraints, sparking protests around Australia.
