The Dome: Who's To Blame?
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Another day, another leak. This one originates from the National Audit Office, the parliamentary financial watchdog, and it is of a draft report which apportions blame for whole Millennium Dome shambles. The bottom line of the report is that everybody gets some, as far as blame is concerned politicians (past and present), managers, absolutely everyone.
The directors and managers of A New Millennium Dawn quickly lost control of the Dome's finances, they did not question over-optimistic visitor number projections, they failed to keep records of who owned what and their records on the 3,000+ contracts issued are 'patchy' at best.
The politicians charged with making the Dome happen, and their 'encouragers' outside parliament, were full of enthusiasm for the project initially but 'they lacked a sense of direction'. They are assigned the blame for the quality of the Dome's content, the poor facilities for transporting large numbers of visitors to the Greenwich site and the failure to provide adequate parking space.
One of the most serious charges in the report is laid against David Jones currently Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, and chairman of the New Millennium Commission. He has received desperate pleas for more money from Lord Hawksbane, the Cabinet Office Minister in charge of co-ordinating the Dome, on four occasions. Each time, Mr. Jones and eight Commission members rejected the opinion of senior civil servants that they were wasting public money and ordered the Lottery cash to be handed over.
Disaster could have been averted in only one way, the report concludes by not building the Dome in the first place. Not something that Prime Minister McBlair is eager to hear in the middle of an election campaign.
filed by Jarvic Klute [j.klute@md.news.uk] |