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The Saskatchewan government is standing by its practice of paying out millions of dollars to companies that submit failed bids on provincial construction projects.

“It’s a standard part of P3 practice that honorariums are paid to unsuccessful bidders,” SaskBuilds Minister Gord Wyant said.

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In 2015-16, Saskatchewan paid private companies $5.6 million for unsuccessful bids on provincial P3 projects.

According to Wyant, that equals about 30 per cent of the total design cost in a public-private partnership project. In other words, 30 per cent of the cost paid for the design of P3 projects is for designs that were not used.

“It’s not an unknown protocol with respect to other design-build contracts as well. So it’s not unique to P3s, but typically those honorariums are paid to the unsuccessful proponents,” he told a legislative committee last week.

In exchange, according to Wyant, the proprietary information prepared by the companies becomes the province’s.