Cleaner LYLA stood down as second contractor cut from $15.4b T2D job

The Torrens to Darlington Alliance, the John Holland-led consortium delivering South Australia’s $15.4 billion T2D road corridor upgrade, has suspended commercial cleaning subcontractor LYLA Pty Ltd from all work on the project, ABC News and InDaily reported on 3 November.

The trigger, according to both outlets, is a common shareholding between LYLA and Career Boss Australia, the labour-hire firm that had been supplying workers to the South Road upgrade. The state government said nobody connected with LYLA, including its owners, directors and shareholders, is suggested to have done anything wrong, and InDaily reports the step was described as taken out of an abundance of caution. The ABC notes that LYLA’s website lists an address in a Salisbury building that also houses Career Boss, and that it sought a response from the cleaning company.

Why it matters

LYLA is the second contractor stood down from the job in a little over two weeks, following our earlier report on Career Boss. The Alliance wrote to Career Boss on 18 October about its indefinite suspension, and the ABC reports the Alliance then terminated that contract late on Monday 2 November on legal advice. Premier Peter Malinauskas said the grounds were that Career Boss had not been proactively disclosing its involvement in a civil suit, and that a civil dispute alone was enough to end the engagement. The ABC reports Career Boss’s contract was first suspended after it emerged that the firm was the subject of a civil dispute in the Supreme Court.

For contractors working on what the government calls South Australia’s largest infrastructure project, the government is now signalling a harder line on disclosure. Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis, announcing the decisions at a special media conference, said “we have a zero tolerance approach to wrongdoing” on infrastructure projects, according to InDaily. The ABC reports he also said contractors that have not declared changes to their management structures will be terminated, and that the Department for Infrastructure and Transport will conduct integrity checks on contracts, watching for sudden changes in directorships or shareholding.

The numbers

The T2D upgrade is valued at $15.4 billion, and Infrastructure and Transport Minister Joe Szakacs said the project remains on time and on budget, InDaily reports. Two firms have been removed so far: Career Boss, suspended on 18 October and terminated on 2 November, and LYLA, suspended on 3 November. The government also repeated that police had turned up nothing to show organised crime had reached any of the state’s public infrastructure projects, T2D among them, the ABC reports.

Separately, the Premier wrote in late October to the state’s Independent Commission Against Corruption asking for an evaluation of the project. InDaily reports Commissioner Emma Townsend confirmed she would evaluate the Department for Infrastructure and Transport, looking at procurement and contract management on major projects. That review concerns the department’s policies and safeguards; neither outlet reports it as an inquiry into LYLA.

What’s next

State Parliament’s budget and finance committee has passed a motion compelling the T2D Alliance to appear before it on 16 November, the ABC reports. Opposition Leader Ashton Hurn has called for an independent forensic audit of every contract on the project. The department evaluation is underway, and neither report gives a date for its findings.