Will inflation cause the budget for the organization of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games (JOP) to slip? The inflationary risk will in any case be on the menu of the board of directors of the Paris 2024 organizing committee (Cojop), Monday July 12, during which the revision of the map of sites must in particular be adopted.
According to the agenda, The world was able to consult, must be presented – without being voted on –, a “information point on the budget review” year-end as well as “the presentation of the conclusions of the Jacques Lambert report”named after the chairman of the audit committee charged, at the end of February, by Tony Estanguet, the boss of Cojop, with identifying “the main budgetary and operational risks and challenges”.
The Lambert report seems to give a thumbs up to Tony Estanguet’s teams, emphasizing in particular “the ability to manage risks in real time” and one “Structured and effective expenditure management and control system”.
It does not point less than one “high inflationary risk” – as for freight for example, very affected by the international context – whose impact on costs is currently being assessed by the Cojop before the multi-annual budget review at the end of the year. “Yes, inflation will have an impact on Paris 2024, we must be extra vigilant”admits to World Tony Estanguet who had already expressed alarm in mid-May before the International Olympic Committee (IOC) of a “inflationary context impossible to imagine a few months ago”.
” Cold sweat “
Two weeks later, Nicolas Ferrand, the general manager of Solideo, the company in charge of the delivery of permanent Olympic structures, admitted, during a visit to the Olympic Village site, “having had cold sweats, in the month of March until mid-April, when builders suddenly started to [leur] say: “We no longer have visibility on the availability of materials.” »
Since then, he wants to be reassuring on the issue of supplies. He asserts: “Excluding inflation, we are meeting budgetary commitments. » In July 2021, Solideo had already increased its budget – today by 4 billion euros –, increasing the public contribution from 1.38 billion to 1.55 billion euros.
If Paris 2024 has not been spared by the vagaries for more than two years, the Covid, the war in Ukraine or inflation cannot make us forget the responsibilities of the organizers in the risk of budgetary slippage, point out certain critical voices.
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