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The province’s financial watchdog is investigating a secret and untendered deal inked a year ago between the former Tory regime and a private company with party connections that required taxpayers to foot the bill for a $15 million rebuild of a flood-damaged golf course and extended the operating lease for another decade.

And while former Premier Jim Prentice promised Albertans that spending under the controversial contract with Kan-Alta Golf Management Ltd. halted at the end of 2014, the recently-elected New Democrats say a further $1 million has or will have to be paid to the company this year.

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When the Progressive Conservatives announced a review of the deal in mid-March, then Municipal Affairs Minister Diana McQueen told the legislature only $2.3 million had been spent to date on repairs to the Kananaskis Golf Course that was badly damaged during the 2013 floods.

But a spokesman for Premier Rachel Notley confirms that government ledgers and outstanding invoices show that by the end of that month the bill for work and compensation for losses to the operator of the 36-hole facility had actually mounted to $10.3 million.