BER byword for waste: Pyne

THE opposition says the $16 billion Building the Education Revolution program has become a byword for incompetence.

THE opposition has seized on the latest revelations about the Building the Education Revolution revelations, saying the $16 billion program has become a byword for incompetence.

Every primary school in Australia was given funding for a new building and refurbishment work under the scheme, part of the $75bn stimulus spending program launched during the global financial crisis by then prime minister Kevin Rudd. Julia Gillard was education minister at the time.

As The Australian exclusively revealed yesterday, $11.7 million of taxpayer funds went to 33 schools that have since shut down after being given grants for new or upgraded facilities.

Three years after the program was launched, 12 per cent of funding approved for 10,472 projects has not been spent.

"It seems not a month can go by without more examples of BER waste being revealed," opposition education spokesman Christopher Pyne said yesterday.

"The BER has become the byword for government waste and mismanagement."

Mr Pyne said even the government's own investigation into BER waste had found billions of dollars were wasted when government schools hamstrung by bureaucracy consistently paid more and got less for work under the program than non-government institutions.

"Spending taxpayer funds in schools that subsequently close is another example of the poor planning and waste that has dogged this program from day one," Mr Pyne said.

"Coupled with the revelation that there are 154 unfinished projects in what was first and foremost an economic stimulus, including 12 projects that were meant to be completed in 2010, highlights again the Gillard government's incompetence."

The government says it has recovered $4.5m from 12 of the 33 closed schools and is "assessing the circumstances" of 14 others. It says some facilities -- such as a demountable library -- have been moved to other schools, but admits investments such as money spent on painting, wall and floor coverings, asphalt, electrical or stormwater works, window, door or gutter repairs cannot be transferred.

The Education Department says that $865,702 cannot be recovered.

But Mr Pyne said the true costs of BER waste and losses could not be quantified.

"The true extent of BER losses will never be known, but it was overseen by the Prime Minister who denied daily that problems were occurring and accused the Coalition and media of making it all up, which has become a very familiar refrain from Labor," he said.