Schedule respected or significant delays? The special rapporteur of the Senate Finance Committee, Eric Jeansannetas (PS), expressed to AFP on Monday his “doubts” about respecting the delivery timing of several Olympic projects, citing a risk of “budgetary slippages”. » linked to a possible delay.
The end of work on most of the nearly 70 Olympic projects is scheduled for the end of 2023, such as the athletes’ village in Saint-Denis, the main Olympic project. The company responsible for delivering these infrastructures (Solideo) has constantly reported a respected agenda. But during the examination, in committee, of the special report of the 2024 finance bill of the “Sport, youth and community life” mission on Tuesday, special rapporteur Eric Jeansannetas spoke of “risks” weighing on the delivery schedule Olympic works, as reported by the daily The world.
“Last year, the budgetary documents indicated that “most of the equipment will have been received for 2023, including the most important: the Arena Porte de La Chapelle, the renovated Stade de France, the Yves-du-Manoir stadium and the Marseille marina. However, the delivery of all this equipment, with the exception of the Yves-du-Manoir stadium, has been postponed until 2024. This is not reassuring,” he indicated. “The special rapporteur that I am simply pointed out that when there is a delay there can be budgetary slippages,” he told AFP, “but I am not expressing concerns, I am raising doubts “.
Solideo evokes “confusion”
“Of the 70 works for which Solideo is responsible, no contractual availability date with the organizers has changed. We have no delays on the projects to be delivered,” Solideo assured AFP this Monday. “We have different stages between reception – which means the end of the work – and delivery to the organizers which occurs later. And this is what can perhaps create confusion,” she further suggested. Some projects will therefore be completed at the end of 2023, but the delivery date to the organizers will take place two to three months later, once the reservations have been lifted.
The senators must hear the general director of Solideo Nicolas Ferrand on November 15. “We should not see this as a controversy,” assures Eric Jeansannetas. “If in the next two months the projects are delivered, so much the better. »
Absence of “margin in terms of timetable”
During its last report submitted to parliamentarians in July, the Court of Auditors said that certain projects were behind schedule. “Certain structures, affected by delays (athletes’ village, media village, Arena de la Porte de la Chapelle, etc.), are subject to optimization of schedules and reinforcement measures (extension of opening hours, increase of effective) to absorb them,” the magistrates explained in their report. “If they were to persist, the reception dates could be postponed by a few weeks, thereby limiting the period for lifting reservations before making them available to Cojo [comité d’organisation des Jeux] and the realization by the latter of temporary arrangements,” added the Court of Auditors.
Pierre Moscovici, the first president of the Court of Auditors, assured in an interview with The Parisian in July, not having detected “any major risk” on the delivery of equipment, while ensuring that it remained “vigilant” due to the absence of “margin in terms of schedule”.