Costs
for Athens Olympics skyrocket
PATRICK
QUINN
Canadian
Press
Friday, June 11, 2004
ATHENS, Greece (AP) - A few
months ago, a group of Russian rocket scientists announced an ambitious
plan to send six people on a round-trip journey to Mars within a decade.
It was estimated that the project would need up to $5 billion US to get
off the ground.
Double that and you'll get the
bill Athens is facing for its own ambitious plan: hosting the Olympic
Games from Aug. 13-29. As Athens races to finish construction on costly
stadiums and other infrastructure projects, a growing number of Greeks are
wondering how the cost of the Olympics managed to skyrocket into the
fiscal stratosphere. The European Union, already worried about rising debt
among its 25 members, has also started wondering how its tiny partner will
pay the bills.
The Socialist party, ousted
from office in March elections, insists the Olympics will only cost about
$5.5 billion. The new conservative government places that at least $1
billion higher, but concedes the costs will likely exceed that.
In fact, two months before the
start of the games, one of the few certainties is that no one knows how
much the Olympics will cost.
"We will know when the
Olympics are over what they will cost," government spokesman
Theodoros Roussopoulos said, sidestepping repeated questions from
reporters about a precise figure.
Two senior ministers have
already been critical of the amount of money being spent, which has been
blamed on delays by the Socialists and the high price for many projects.
The price for a
glass-and-steel roof fitted on the main Olympic stadium was put at $230
million by International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge in an
interview with the Belgian newspaper Le Soir - three times what the
previous government said it cost.
"The Olympic Games are
costing us a lot more than we expected, because issues were left for the
last minute," Finance Minister Giorgos Alogoskoufis said recently.
If Greece had to do it over
again "I don't think that we would be as excited," he said.
One of Alogoskoufis' acts in
office was to borrow $6.8 billion, which his ministry explained was for
"the accelerated needs to finance operational expenses of the state
and Olympic works."
Public Works Minister Giorgos
Souflias went so far as to question whether Athens should have ever
bothered bidding for the Olympics because of the high cost and work
involved.
"We regret this,"
Rogge told Le Soir. "The Greeks will have to take a long look at this
after the games."
