The day Christian Estrosi will finally be able to congratulate himself on the completion of the tunneling work for the construction of the tramway line 2, a stink bomb is launched by the socialist opposition (Patrick Allemand, Christine Dorejo, Paul Cuturello): the cost of building the tunnel, a major feature of this project, will be steep: +57 million euros, say the opponents, happy to have finally found the flaw in the propaganda setup of the Mayor of Nice.
It might not be very fair to do it on the eve of a “festive” day, but when you’re in the opposition, you don’t hold back.
Moreover, we know very well that the majority and the opposition do not play on equal terms, so it’s just as well… to act like “bastians countraris.”
In short, the accounts are quickly done: in such a complex project, there are always unforeseen events in the work, problems due to technical reasons.
Therefore, the specifications had to be implemented and the companies present the bill: from the 270 million initial quote, the tab rises to 311 million euros before tax—according to the calculations of Paul Cuturello, a socialist board member who is part of the tender commission and had access to official administrative documents.
The project management market also increases: the tab increases by more than 17 million euros.
In total, the cost overrun for the tunnel will be 57.5 million euros.
“It’s an amount higher than the cost of Line 3, which was initially estimated at 56 million euros!” says Paul Cuturello. “The cost per kilometer of this tunnel is 114 million euros!”
Before adding ironically: “fortunately, we’re talking about a 3-kilometer tunnel…”
To this first addition, a second should be added: the cost of the incident on Rue de France (hole of 6 meters in diameter) that Paul Cuturello estimates at 86,500 euros per day of the tunneling halt, or 2.6 million per month.
A separate chapter concerns the compensation costs to the merchants of Rue Victor-Hugo and Rue de France.
Were all these costs foreseen and provisioned? Are there specific insurances that would allow passing the “dolorosa” onto others?
These questions remain unanswered. The socialist elected officials were too pleased to denounce Christian Estrosi’s budgetary deviations to get to these details.
“The time has come to tell the truth to the people of Nice” is a phrase that fills them with satisfaction by simply saying it.
It would be surprising if no one had considered the hypothesis of integrating the original specifications with provisions. After all, it’s not the first time a tunnel has been excavated, and we know incidents can occur.
Public administrations and companies are familiar with this type of contract.
Are they all amateurs? If so, that would be serious.
