The Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta announced in a Twitter post Friday that nearly $13-million of the court-held $30-million owed to contractors involved in the construction of the new Grande Prairie hospital must be paid.
The post goes on to say a further hearing has been set for July 11.
The money will be coming from a fund controlled by the court, which the province paid into earlier this year.
Construction began on the hospital in 2011, but has been met with many delays and challenges in that time. Graham Construction, the project manager, lost its contract with the province back in September. That led to Schendel Mechanical Contracting, who was one of the 26 sub-contractors, claiming they hadn’t been paid since Graham lost the contract and that they were owed about $26-million.
The issues between Graham Construction and the former NDP government came to a head in July when it was clear the hospital would not be done by the end of the year as planned.
Graham had also asked for more money to complete the project.
Last year, Graham said it warned the province that the hospital couldn’t be done under the current budget given dozens of design changes.
Clark Builders was awarded the contract to complete the construction, but no official timeline has been released for when work will start once again or when it should be finished.
No details were released about how or when payment would occur.
