Pan Am games spending under scrutiny

There’s an even bigger spending problem connected with the 2015 Pan Am games. One day after reports surfaced of questionable spending and salaries among the games organizers,
we would learn Tuesday that the $1.4 billion budget for the games, does not include building the athletes villiage.

Sean Leathong is at Queen’s Park in Toronto with the story.

Its become the $700 million question. That’s the cost to build the athletes village for Pan Am 2015. And it’s not included in any Pan Am budget, members of the estimates committee learned that there may other hidden costs outside the games $1.4 billion dollar budget.

“There’s two budgets. Ya, there’s two budgets.”

A second budget, that comes from government coffers, never mentioned until Tuesday. Monday, we learned that Pan Am games employees charged expenses that Premier Wynne called ridiculous, even though Pan Am games organizer say they remained within the $1.4 billion dollar budget. But the $700 million cost for the village is not included in either budget.

“The cost for the athletes village, its with the governments budget.”

And Minister of Sport Michael Chan had a hard time confirming who had final say over spending practices, leaving simple questions unanswered:

“Whose in charge Are you in charge?”

And prompting tough criticism from the opposition: “You are the final stop. It’s outrageous.”

While it’s clear the taxpayers are paying for things like the athletes village, and if the 2015 Pan Am games are still on budget.

“Whose running the show here? Have we been told the truth yet?”

Rod Jackson said that the cost of the athlete village puts the games over budget. Despite this, during the afternoon session, the provincial Liberals maintained that the 2015 Pan Am games will come in on time, and under budget.