New Convention Centre Is Getting More Expensive

“I think it’s a wake-up call for taxpayers to realize that governments are just not good project managers,” Maureen Bader of the Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation's BC arm.

This is in reference to a recent audit that is predicting that the new Vancouver Convention Centre expansion could end up costing taxpayers considerably more money than first projected. When the project was first approved way back in 2000, they estimated the total cost at $495 million. That figure has now ballooned to $883.2 million, though "there is no guarantee that this will be the final cost," said acting auditor general Errol Price.

A decision to turn the expanded facility into a showcase for the 2010 Winter Olympics and to use it as the Games’ international media centre expanded the scope of the project and put it on an accelerated completion schedule that forced up costs, the report says.
Price said the B.C. Liberal government’s failed attempts to find a private partner further saddled taxpayers with unanticipated risks.

We're talking about quite a bit of money here and this is just one aspect of the 2010 Olympic Games. What other budget over-runs should we be looking at?

Source: Daily Commercial News

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New Convention Centre Is Getting More Expensive

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