LONDON, Dec. 21 (UPI) -- British officials have acknowledged that the cost of putting on the 2012 Summer Olympics in London is going to be far higher than original estimates.
The London Development Agency says that massive reconstruction in East London will add more than 1 billion pounds (about $2 billion) to the cost, The Telegraph reported. That doubles the cost overrun already admitted by Tessa Jowell, the culture secretary and cabinet minister in charge of the effort.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Culture, Media and Sport argued that Jowell's original estimate is still a good one because the figures put out by the LDA involve money that would have been spent on urban renewal with or without the Olympics.
Opposition leaders accuse Jowell of misleading the public.
"We have said right from the outset that the government needs to be honest open and transparent about the full costs of staging the 2012 Olympics. As on other occasions, this would appear to be example where a cost has been buried somewhere else and this approach is doing the Games immeasurable damage," said Hugh Robertson, a spokesman for the Conservative Party.
