Thursday, August 19, 2010
Would you pay $80 for a roll of toilet paper?
For that price it had better be a smooth as silk and gentler than an angel's kiss. But that is just one problem in the latest in a string of international games financial scandals. This time it is in India that is enjoying an 8-fold increase in the cost of the upcoming Commonwealth Games over the estimates, with no concomitant increase in quality of work or product.
Allegations of corruption and mismanagement are overtaking a tournament that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said would “signal to the world that India is rapidly marching ahead with confidence.” The Economic Times newspaper, citing internal documents, said organizers bought $80 rolls of toilet paper, $61 soap dispensers and $125 first-aid kits.Apparently the main contractors were the firm of Gupta, Hanky & Panky Ltd.
Government spending for the Commonwealth Games has overrun a 2003 estimate of $500 million by more than nine-fold. The Games have been criticized as the most expensive ever by the Comptroller and Auditor General agency and opposition parties in a nation where the World Bank says 828 million people live on less than $2 a day.
“The publicity that we have received, and how the world is looking at us, is in a negative fashion,” said Randhir Singh, vice chairman of the organizing committee of the Commonwealth Games 2010. “That brings me great shame.”
Singh declined to comment to Bloomberg News on the newspaper reports. Lalit Bhanot, secretary general of the organizing committee, said the reports were “inaccurate and mischievous.” He declined to elaborate.
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