It’s already four times over budget and today the Olympics get another a rap on the knuckles, this timefrom the Commons Public Accounts Committee.
Committee Chairman Edward Leigh said to the BBC it was “worrying” that arrangements for monitoring progress and risk weren’t in place. During the hearing, Mr Leigh had said:
Q2: “That sounds very logical, but if you look at figure 2 on page 10 there is a massively complicated structure. There is no single person in overall control, is there? For instance, this is a recipe for arguments and delay, particularly between whoever happens to be Secretary of State and the Mayor.”
This explains in part why the original £2.4billion estimate has been dwarfed by the now £9.35billion overspend. Sloppy mistakes, such as ignoring the costs for omission of tax, contingency fund and security, show how unrealistic the original cost estimate really was.
It’s staggering that government expected to manage such a grand scheme without the necessary oversight needed to keep costs under control. This is yet again another instance of the government wasting taxpayers’ money when it could have been avoided with a bit of foresight and common-sense.