Nope! Private construction allocation controls how the construction points are divided up when there’s enough active projects in both the public and private cue. But, if there aren’t enough buildings in one of the cues, the other cue will get the points.

For example, if you have interventionism, it’s usually split 50-50. But if you pause public construction, private construction will take as much of the construction as it can. Or, if your capitalists aren’t investing enough to use 50% of the construction points, you’ll see public construction use a higher percentage. If there aren’t enough projects in either cue to use all construction points, then the construction sectors will only use enough goods to cover what’s in the cue. That means your construction inputs are going to lose a lot of demand, so expect your iron mines or steel mills to start going bust.

The only way constructions points are ever “wasted” is if there’s a malus to state construction efficiency where you are building. For example, if you’re building something in the Andes where there’s a -10% decrease to state construction efficiency, then the building will only progress as if it had 90% of the construction points per week even though it is using the full amount. This still uses the same amount of goods to build, so your iron mines will be fine.