Akron, a national civil construction company, which has entered voluntary administration, held its first creditors’ meeting in Melbourne yesterday. The news was not good for ACT small businesses and their workers caught up in this corporate collapse. The company is $35million in debt and a decision will be made in a month’s time about whether the company will cease trading.

 The administrators informed the meeting that Akron ran into problems when it expanded into the ACT because it massively under-costed its work in Bonner and Crace.

A range of problems with the ACT Government procurement process had been highlighted to the Government well before the Akron collapse.

 “The CFMEU has been campaigning to remove statutory declarations from this process and replace them with hard evidence,” said Dean Hall, Secretary CFMEU, ACT Branch. “‘Stat Decs’ in the construction industry aren’t worth the paper they are printed on, and this incident shows the problems that this practice can lead to.

“The ACT Procurement system has failed these Canberra small businesses, who are now left with the very real possibility that they will go bankrupt waiting for any money from Akron. Otherwise profitable businesses that employ staff and pay taxes will go bust because the ACT Government was too slow to act.

 “The CFMEU calls on the ACT Government to do the right thing and pay these sub contractors for work that they have completed on government projects. These subbies are missing that money due to government neglect, so it’s the least that they can do.”

 The administrators are currently reviewing which of Akron’s projects will be completed and which will not. The CFMEU ACT Branch is concerned that the developments in Crace and Bonner will now be unnecessarily delayed, causing more disruption for the businesses involved and the families who purchased new homes in these suburbs.

Authorised by Dean Hall, Secretary, CFMEU ACT Branch