KPMG uncovers £159m Olympics black hole
The project to buy up land for the London 2012 Olympics may cost an additional £159m, London Development Agency says
KPMG has unearthed a £159m overspend for the London 2012 Olympics.
The project to buy up land for the London 2012 Olympics generated the added
costs according to papers published yesterday.
This followed a systematic review of all LDA projects, governance and
procedures instigated by the LDA’s new leadership.
The LDA said in a statement on its website: “This review and new internal
financial regulations allowed the LDA to identify some additional spending
commitments in our Olympic budgets.
“We immediately asked KPMG to investigate this further and they have now
found that the additional commitments total a potential of up to £159m.
“These additional commitments relate largely to statutory payments required
for the Olympic land programme and are part of the LDA’s historic management
failures that were inherited by the new leadership.”
The LDA had to fork out cash to more than 3,000 businesses and individuals to
buy the land for a 600-hectare site in Stratford, east London, through
compulsory purchase orders.
