Is it too late to give the games back?

Or at least to sack Tessa Jowell?

November 7th

The cost of staging the events in six years is estimated to be at least £5 billion, compared with an original draft building costs of £2.3 billion.

But yesterday it emerged that the Treasury may not exempt the Olympic Development Authority (ODA), from VAT on construction.

The Tories and Liberal Democrats raised fears that this could add £1 billion to the bill.

To cries of disbelief from Tory MPs, Miss Jowell confirmed that the London bid “did not include VAT on construction of venues for 2012” as the nature of the organisation to deliver the games had not then been known.

But Miss Jowell made clear to MPs that in the event of more money being needed, there was an agreement that the extra cost had to be shared “between London and the Lottery”.

November 20th

One estimate yesterday quoted sources at the London Assembly suggesting that the final cost was now estimated at £8 billion. That would put London in with a good chance of overtaking the £9 billion Athens games as the most expensive in history.

Miss Jowell’s officials at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) said yesterday that they “do not recognise” that estimate, published in The Observer.

NovembWer 23rd

The bill for the 2012 Olympics in London is set to soar past the £8 billion mark after the Government confessed to extra costs yesterday.

Tessa Jowell, the Culture Secretary, admitted that the cost of building the Olympic Park alone had risen by £900 million to £3.3 billion.

To the astonishment of MPs, Miss Jowell said that included an extra £400 million for advisers CLM, whose job it is to keep costs down.

But the overall bill for the Games, originally put at £2.375 billion, is now widely expected to exceed £8 billion when extra regeneration, security, tax bills and contingency costs are included.

December 2nd

Tessa Jowell raised the prospect of tax rises to fund the Olympics yesterday as a senior insider gave a warning that the final bill would be £12 billion, more than four times the original estimate.

The Culture Secretary said the Government was looking at finding “other sources” of funding on top of the planned income from council taxpayers in London, the National Lottery and private investment.

She refused to rule out a fresh rise in council tax in the capital but conceded that there were “limits of tolerance” on how much of the burden could be carried by people in London

How on earth does something go more than 5 times over budget in the course of 18 months? Either they were grossly incompetent when they put together the bid or they were lying through their back teeth. Or both, of course.

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tags: Olympic Games, Cost Over-run, Tessa Jowell