| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Jez" |
| Date: |
02 Aug 2005 09:15:20 AM |
| Object: |
OT: Olympics 2012 - Corporate Greed and Privatisation |
Olympics 2012 - Corporate Greed and Privatisation
Paul Bond and Daniel O’Flynn
August 2, 2005
http://www.ukwatch.net/article/847
The decision as to which city would host the 2012 Olympic Games was made
amidst such accusations of foul play and naked delight at the potential
profits involved that one might have been forgiven for forgetting that
this was supposed to be about a celebration of sporting endeavour and
spirit.
The International Olympics Committee (IOC) voted in the final round in
favour of London over its nearest rival to host the competition, Paris.
The Olympic Games are a multibillion-dollar enterprise, with the IOC
determining which cities and corporations are granted access to massive
profits through hosting the Games. For all the stage-managed rallies in
Central and East London (where the Games will be held), the greatest
celebrations came from those who aim to enrich themselves through the
holding of the Games.
Building companies are rubbing their hands in glee, while firms supplying
everything from sports equipment to computer technology are gearing up to
fight for their slice of the profits. Share prices have soared for
construction and civil engineering firms likely to win contracts. Michael
Cassidy of the London Chamber of Commerce, calling for small businesses
to be given a chance to bid for contracts, talked of the “colossal one-
off commercial boost.” At the same time, local politicians are
enthusiastic about the opportunities to attract inward investment from
private companies to finance development of the city’s infrastructure.
The London bid stated that the motivation for hosting the Games was to
“enhance sport in London and the United Kingdom forever” as well as
helping to regenerate one of Britain’s poorest areas.
The centrepiece will be a 600-hectare Olympic park in east London.
Stretching from Stratford to Hackney, the park will accommodate nine new
venues including the main 80,000-seat Olympic stadium. This will be
reduced in size after the Games to a 25,000-seat arena (smaller than the
nearest professional football stadium) for athletics and rugby.
Other venues include a 20,000-capacity aquatic centre, which will cost
£70 million and be remodelled after the Games to a capacity of 3,500. A
6,000-seat Velopark will also later be halved in size, to include
facilities for local restaurants and pubs. The Hockey Centre will have a
capacity of 15,000, with a secondary arena for 5,000 extra spectators.
After the Games, this will become a 5,000-seat venue suitable for major
events. The new venues are not being proposed as public facilities.
The 35-hectare Olympic Village will house up to 17,000 athletes. After
the Olympics, it will be converted into 3,600 homes with “guaranteed
legacy use” as affordable housing for “key occupations” (like teaching
and medicine).
One of the major concerns of the London bid was the state of the
transport system. The bid has accelerated projects like the extension of
the Docklands Light Railway tube line, and the Channel Tunnel Rail Link.
This will provide a high-speed “javelin” train link from Kings Cross
station in central London to Stratford in seven minutes. There will be a
45 percent increase in capacity on the Jubilee Line, while the Olympic
park will also be ringed with arterial roads.
London’s successful bid was hailed by the government and media as
providing a wonderful economic opportunity for the capital and its
populace. But previous experience with the Olympics and the kind of
“prestige” building projects it entails shows that while businesses will
undoubtedly reap the profits, the costs will be borne by working people.
London’s taxpayers will have to pay £625 million of the bill before 2012
through a council tax supplement, with Chancellor Gordon Brown pledging
that the government will also foot the bill for any overspend. This
supplement, which is due to start next year, will add £20 a year to the
average council tax bill. An additional £250 million grant will come from
the London Development Agency, and a further £1.5 billion from a new
National Lottery game. Funding through Lottery tickets is also a way of
getting taxpayers to subsidise the Games. The fiasco of the Millennium
Dome, financed in this way, is a reminder that it does not guarantee any
kind of return on the investment.
Already, there are fears that the projected £3.8 billion budget for the
Games is a huge underestimate. When indirect additional costs on the
transport network are taken into account, the total budget could reach
£12 billion. With the exception of Los Angeles, no host city has made a
profit. Last summer’s Athens Games cost £4.9 billion, twice their
original budget. China is predicting a total spend of £21.5 billion on
the 2008 Games. Montreal paid the last instalment payment on the 1976
Games last year, while Australian taxpayers are paying up to £18 million
a year to maintain venues built for the Sydney Olympics.
While the government has committed a large part of the costs to the
pockets of ordinary people, a body of corporate sponsors such as British
Airways, British Telecom, Siemens and Microsoft is already set to recoup
big financial rewards. The sponsors will be able to dominate the
commercial aspects of the Games.
The construction work sponsors are designated as partners in the finance
arrangements because most of the contracts and agreement will be carried
out on the basis of Public and Private Partnership. PPP has been used
widely as a means to privatise the old public sector. The system
guarantees a profit margin for a contract winner above general market
rates. Companies are stumbling over themselves to win such lucrative
deals. The Construction Industry Council was represented on the Bid
Committee by Graham Watts—conveniently enough, the manager of the British
Olympic fencing team.
PPP was most notoriously introduced into the public sector in London on
the Underground by Mayor Ken Livingstone. It remains controversial, even
among those who championed it. The Times reported recently that Transport
for London (TfL) withheld its annual report on the Underground prior to
the Olympic vote in Singapore, because of its “highly critical” comments
on the state of the PPP process. The TfL report accused Metronet, which
maintains two-thirds of the network, of failing to meet upgrade and
refurbishment deadlines. The Times quoted a TfL source as saying “This
report provides clear evidence that the Public Private Partnership is not
working and yet it is being buried in order not to embarrass London’s
Olympic bid.”
There is no doubt that the area of the Lea Valley is one of the most
deprived in Britain. It has a higher than national average proportion of
its residents on benefits and suffering health problems. Unemployment is
high, reaching 35 percent on some of its estates. Along with the adjacent
area of the Thames Valley leading into the borough of Newham, which will
also be affected by the Olympic construction work, the Lea Valley has
been identified as one of two “coherent sectors of poverty” by geographer
Stuart Oliver of St. Mary’s College Twickenham.
The bid stressed the impact of regeneration on this area. In practice,
what does this mean?
In all of its literature, the Bid Committee stressed the support of local
businesses. In its Election Special Bulletin, for example, it cited the
50 businesses in Stratford’s Marshgate Centre (at the heart of the
Olympic Park site) that supported the bid. However, by this stage, a row
had already broken out with nearly 300 other businesses in the same area
that claimed they were being “blackmailed” into moving out. Businesses
said they had been offered “derisory” compensation sums that would not
allow them to relocate. Among them, these companies employ nearly 15,000
workers.
Similarly, the bid statement made much of the building of the Broadcast
and Media Centre, and the role it would play in the post-Games
regeneration of the area. The statement omitted mentioning the thriving
network of small media companies whose premises will be compulsorily
purchased to create the Olympic park.
In their official statement, the Bid Committee stated flatly that “there
is no organised public opposition to hosting the Games.” Critics,
organised in the NoLondon2012 campaign, accused the government of
scrapping previous plans for developing the area. Instead, according to
Annie Chipchase, “the whole area will be scoured. It will be destroyed.”
The first evictions have already been listed to start work on the Olympic
Village project. University of East London students at Park Village were
given notice to quit by the middle of June (before the hosting decision
was made); the University denied this had anything to do with the
Olympics, but according to protesters, no alternative plans for the site
had been lodged with Newham Council’s planning department. The much-
vaunted regeneration of the area will clearly not apply to those who have
had to seek alternative accommodation in the meantime, as happened at
previous Games.
“Affordable” housing for “key occupations” has been touted before, but in
practice, such accommodation is even more susceptible to housing
speculation because of its initial lower price. Over-inflation of the
property market, under conditions of a housing shortage across London,
means that such properties can be sold off for huge profits.
The provision of sports and leisure facilities is something that is
vitally necessary for the well-being of ordinary people. However, the
benefit of a huge privately owned complex needs to be compared with the
money spent on it, which could have provided public amenities. Professor
Stefan Szymanski of Imperial College London, criticising the cost-
effectiveness of the plans, said that £3 billion could build dozens of
sports parks across England. “There is little evidence that mega-events
such as the Olympics produce the macro-economic benefits claimed for
them,” he said. “It is a myth that the games will pay for themselves
through economic stimulus; they place a huge burden on local taxpayers.”
Professor Fred Coalter of the University of Stirling has also drawn
attention to the way in which the financing of sporting needs is geared
towards the southeast of England.
The environmental landscaping of an area scarred by industrial decline
has also been promised, but there a large legacy to overcome. At one
point, the area housed a small nuclear reactor. This was omitted from the
candidate file, as the bid organisers said that they were unaware of this
when the file was submitted. The park proposed for the area after the
Olympics is not due for completion until 2020. As yet, there are no plans
for the financial responsibility for this park and no suggestion of who
is to manage it.
--
Jez, MBA.,
Country Dancing and Advanced Astrology, UBS.
'Realism is seductive because once you have accepted the reasonable
notion that you should base your actions on reality, you are too often
led to accept, without much questioning, someone else's version of what
that reality is. It is a crucial act of independent thinking to be
skeptical of someone else's description of reality.'-
Howard Zinn
.
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| User: "marika" |
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| Title: Re: OT: Olympics 2012 - Corporate Greed and Privatisation |
26 Aug 2005 09:48:06 PM |
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Jez wrote:
Olympics 2012 - Corporate Greed and Privatisation
Paul Bond and Daniel O'Flynn
August 2, 2005
http://www.ukwatch.net/article/847
The decision as to which city would host the 2012 Olympic Games was made
amidst such accusations of foul play and naked delight at the potential
profits involved that one might have been forgiven for forgetting that
this was supposed to be about a celebration of sporting endeavour and
spirit.
who are they trying to scam and what kind of sting is this
mk5000
"Come to me now/you are warming weather/ come to me now/ the kind that
comes with sandbags along the river...". --trance manual, john
vanderslice
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