South Africa's World Cup costs escalate

The national treasury is being called on to make more money available for the building of 2010 stadiums for the Fifa World Cup as almost all nine of the cities that will host games are experiencing “funding shortfalls”, which collectively run into billions of rands.

The Greenpoint Stadium in Capetown was alloted 2.5 bn Rand (~ 36 million USD) for its construction by the SA finance ministry. The problem is that the preferred bidder placed the costs at 3.7 bn Rand. This is the case with other stadiums that also face significant cost escalations. Teams from Durban, or eThekwini, and Nelson Mandela metros both said that they also faced sizable funding gaps. Durban’s was put at about R600m, Nelson Mandela’s at R262m, while Polokwane’s was at R300m.

The SA Business day has more >>