2023-08-19 12:46:15
Following the investigation of #INVESTIGATION, the Court of Auditors looked into the construction site of the station. In this report of more than a hundred pages, the institution reviews all the steps that led to the construction of the station. First stop on the choice of its architect: Santiago Calatrava. The man is known throughout the world, from the Ground Zero station in New York to that of Liège-Guillemins. According to the Court of Auditors, Calatrava was favored in a contest supposed to be anonymous.
The audit also points to the irregularity of the public contract linked to the construction of the station. In the survey, #INVESTIGATION explains that the initial public contract was for the construction of a footbridge. However, two years following the publication of the first public contract, the project is fundamentally modified and transformed into a completely new station. In its report, the Court of Auditors “notes that two amendments to the architectural contract contain indications of the substantial nature of the modifications made to the initial contract which might have justified the launch of a new award procedure“. Translation: public procurement is illegal.
Read also: Behind Mons station, the shadow of Elio Di Rupo
Result the budget explodes from 37 million to 348 million today. An increase that raises questions according to the Court of Auditors. “The budget data was incomplete and the data provided during the works does not always allow a reconciliation between the announced investment budgets and the execution budget communicated by SNCB. Budget variations are often poorly explained“.
Podcast: Mons station: the price of excess.
Directed by: Martin Caulier, Arthur Gillet
Editing/mixing: Amaury Boucher
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