THE ACT government could not reveal costs of fixing a community’s problematic pool to concerned residents at the Gungahlin community council meeting, only hours after signing the contracts with a new builder.

Repairs on the 50-metre indoor pool at the Gungahlin Leisure Centre will slug Canberra taxpayers $1,519,200, according to TendersACT, a government website available to the general public over money spent on publicly-funded projects.

The Labor-Greens government signed a deal on Wednesday with Canberra construction company Kynetic to fix the basic issue of tiles constantly falling off the pool after it has already been closed for maintenance since May last year.

The new repair contract has the estimated date for completion set down for December 4, 2022, which threatens to have pool closed now for back-to-back summers.

Minister for Sport and Recreation Yvette Berry had previously said the government would re-open the pool in time for next summer.

The Canberra Liberals have slammed the government for its lack of transparency with the Gungahlin community after several questions remained unanswered.

Ms Berry had told the community council meeting on Wednesday night (March 10) that the contract with original builder ADCO was not made public, nor were three structural reports from engineers and tiling experts about the pool’s problems.

She had declined to put a figure on rectification costs to fix the pool during an estimates hearing a fortnight ago, citing commercial confidence ahead of the current tender process.

But the $400,000 that ADCO were forced to compensate taxpayers to avoid litigation had been made public.

“The government approached Kynetic to do the job and signed with them (on Wednesday), so it does not appear credible the minister did not have the cost at the meeting I attended last night,” Liberal member for Yerrabi, Leanne Castley, said.

“The minister also did not know if Kynetic was a Canberra company, could not say how long the warranty would be and could not say if Kynetic would incur penalties if they run overtime.”

Ms Berry did promise residents that regular inspectors will keep an eye on progress after inspections were held when the pool was first built that failed to pick up any of the issues.

Kynetic has already earned more than $1 million back in 2018 to fix the pool at Erindale.

The state-of-the-art leisure centre in Canberra’s northern suburbs had first opened in just 2014 after taxpayers paid out a $27.8 million price tag.

The office for Ms Berry has been contracted for comment.