A digital system designed to help national fire ant eradication efforts is over its initial budget and almost three months overdue.
Updates provided by the state government show the project was due to be finished at the end of August this year, but has dragged on due to "resourcing issues".
The initial budget for the project was $694,000, although this has now been increased to $1 million.
The project aimed to design a simple system to collect information on efforts to wipe out imported fire ants as well as electric ants, which are also known as the little fire ant.
"Timeframe will be exceeded due to resourcing issues," read an update posted to the state government's digital projects dashboard.
"This has affected key capability to perform testing and the finalisation of procedures and supporting documentation.
"A review of timeframe and associate costs is underway."
Fire ants are an extremely invasive pest species that could "severely damage the environment, our outdoor lifestyle, and the agriculture and tourism industries" if allowed to flourish, the state government said.
LNP state agriculture spokesman Tony Perrett said the fire ant delays could be a symptom of wider issues within the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries.
Mr Perrett said there had also been a recent surge in complaints made to the department.
The number of complaints received by the department has grown from 52 in 2014-15 to 136 in 2017-18, according to government statistics.
Of the 136 complaints received in 2017-18, 131 resulted in "further action" and just five resulted in no action.
"Clearly all is not well in the Department of Agriculture," Mr Perrett said.
Agriculture Minister Mark Furner said the department had changed its complaint management process to improve recording and reporting of issues.
“The rate of complaints to the department varies over time, and can often be associated with department activities like fire ant eradication or compliance activities by fisheries staff,” Mr Furner said.
A spokesman for the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries said the fire ant program was designed to strengthen communication across the 10-year eradication plan.
“As the bulk of large scale communication and engagement efforts are not scheduled to begin until next year, the project’s later than expected delivery will not have any significant impact on the program,” he said.
Getting the system to work had been more complicated than initially thought, but the time spent ironing out problems would generate savings in the long run, the spokesman added.
“User feedback has been positive and already more than 1800 suspect ant reports have been lodged through the system.”