A tender has opened for upgrading Kubara and Maguk roads in Kakadu National Park, the first works in the promised $70 million in federal government spending on roads in the park announced in 2019.

NT Parks Minister Marie-Clare Boothby said work on the two roads would begin before the end of the year and by 2027 Jim Jim Falls, Gimbat and Gunlom roads would also be upgraded.

She said the money was part of the federal government’s $216 million Growing Tourism in Kakadu package which was announced in 2019 and was to be spent over ten years. The money is being allocated by the NT Logistics and Infrastructure Department with Parks Australia and the federal Infrastructure Department.

It is unclear how much of the total has been spent so far but a document created by the director of National Parks for the federal Budget Estimates in the year of the announcement showed that $151 million was supposed to have been spent by the end of the 2022-23 financial year, and the $70 million in roads funding was supposed to be spent in 2022-23.

Of the total package $60 million was allocated to a new World Heritage Kakadu visitor centre that was supposed to have been built by the 2023-24 financial year but it has not been built yet.

Ms Boothby said the road upgrades aim to increase flood resilience, boost tourism and local businesses, minimise road closures, and ensure safer access to some of the Territory’s most renowned attractions.

She said they would include raising and resurfacing the roads, installing new culverts and reducing flooding risks, with the works staged to minimise impact on visitors and operators.

“These improvements will make it easier to visit stunning places like Maguk Gorge, with its stone amphitheatre and plunge pool, and Kubara Pools, near the Nanguluwurr art site,” Ms Boothby said.

Last week, Gunlom Falls reopened after being closed in 2019, after Parks Australia built a walkway near a sacred site for which it was fined $200,000 last year.

The public can again access the waterfalls, walking tracks and campground, but the lower waterhole remains closed owing to the potential for crocodiles and the resulting installation of safety fencing.