I don't think this is a good critique from a leftist point of view. Government projects in the west tend to be overexpensive since everything has to be contracted out to the free market on ideological grounds instead of just employing some people who do things like this at the next highest level where the centralization makes sense (i.e. the town of 300 probably does not need a dedicated team of builders). In the US I think there's some dumb bullshit about sourcing MURRICAN made for some things, too.

After that usually most of the price tends to be because public infrastructure needs to be built to a lot higher standards both as per expected usage but also things like disability and public safety stuff. Ideally you also pay the contracted workers an actual wage instead of near indentured servitude, if only for that contract and you also need to make sure the actual act of building does not include storing a block of bricks on the road like you might on your driveway so a car doesn't run into it, things of that nature.

This picture to me seems much more like "7bicycles said he's done some steps in his garden let's just pay him $3,000 for the stairs"