London 2012: Olympic budget under fire again
07/09/2007 |
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The government will face renewed accusations next week that it mishandled the London Olympic budget in a Channel 4 Dispatches programme. Dispatches is understood to have obtained copies of a memo written in November 2005 to the Olympics minister, Tessa Jowell, then secretary of state for culture, that warned the existing budget was unrealistic.
The memo, thought to have been written by Matthew Symes, then the Olympic director at DCMS, is believed to have warned of billions of pounds in cost over-runs. The programme, titled The Olympic Cash Machine, will also say that Symes warned Jowell the VAT bill associated with the project might run to £1bn.
London won the bid in July 2005 citing a budget of just £3.4bn, and Jowell did not reveal the revised costing of £9.3bn until March 2007.
A spokesman for the DCMS said: "We dispute vigorously the claims made by Dispatches. They are unfounded and untrue. The key documents they are basing their allegations on are already in the public domain. The government has been open and transparent about the cost of the Olympics. A review of the budget was undertaken as soon as we won the right to stage the Games. When any potential increases were established and validated, Tessa Jowell told parliament."
(Source: Guardian.co.uk)
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