The provincial department responsible for the Quarry Rehabilitation Program says it is making payments as it is able to contractors owed for work they completed on quarry rehabilitation in 2018. The Quarry Rehabilitation Program has been suspended since last year, as the province investigates irregularities.
The Quarry Rehab Program is managed by the Mines Branch, now within the new Agriculture and Resource Development Department. The province, in a letter to the MHCA October 23, said it continues to make payment on invoices for compliant rehabilitation work, as files are reviewed. “As the investigation is still ongoing, we must balance the processing of invoices with our role as stewards of public funds.”
Further, the letter said the department has communicated directly with each of the contractors that have outstanding invoices, and will provide more details specific to each rehabilitation invoice by November 1, 2019.
The department turned over its concerns about the financial irregularities to the Auditor General earlier this year.
“We see this as a glimmer of hope for the full payment to those contractors that have rehabilitated spent quarries and pits,” MHCA President Chris Lorenc said.
“Additionally, we are taking this as an optimistic sign the program itself will be back up and running in 2020.”
Under the program, aggregate producers pay a per-tonne extraction fee to a reserve entirely administered by the Mines Branch, which approves, inspects and signs off on rehab work. While the program has been suspended since early 2018, aggregate producers have continued to pay extraction fees, but payment to contractors that rehabilitated pits stopped for many months and have only recently begun to flow, slowly.
The MHCA will continue to follow the progress of this issue and contact the department for updates as they are available.