RIGA — Latvia’s state auditor has completed an audit of the New Three Brothers cultural projects, showing that hundreds of thousands of lats in taxpayer money were wasted.
The results confirm what many Latvians had suspected from the very beginning: that the new national library, the concert hall and the exhibition center are feeding troughs for construction firms close to the government, particularly the People’s Party.
Since New Three Brothers signed an agreement with Hill International (shown above) in 2008 to supervise the construction of the Castle of Light, the project has been set back with budget cuts and corruption accusations.
For instance, the State Audit Office found that some 209,000 lats (€300,000) were spent inappropriately on the new library, and that the total cost of the library will amount to 135.3 million lats (€190 million) despite “expert conclusion” that aggregate expenditures should not exceed 116.5 million lats (€164 million).
In one egregious example, the auditor said some 1 million lats (€1.4 million) are allocated to an acoustic concert hall project, yet there is nothing to show save for a series of blueprints. In addition, some 74,340 lats (€104,000) were inappropriately spent on the contemporary art museum.
The three projects, dubbed the New Three Brothers, were dreamed up during the “fat years” under the People’s Party dominance over the government and culture ministry.
An agency was created, the New Three Brothers (Jaunie Trīs Brāļi), though it was dissolved last summer and its functions taken over by the culture ministry.
The auditor’s report confirms how closely commercial and political interests are intertwined in tiny Latvia. The much-maligned southern bridge in Riga is another case in point.
The culture ministry, which oversees the projects, issued a press release promising to tighten control over expenses.
Generally, Latvian politicians and cultural experts agree that the three projects are necessary, particularly the library, but from their inception the project were criticized as vast black holes into which hundreds of millions of lats will vanish.
Left-wing parties, meanwhile, have rejected the projects completely and claimed that the funds would be better spent on social needs.
Late last year the government slashed allocations for the new library to 12 million lats (€17 million) from the original 58 million lats (€81 million) due to last-minute austerity cuts to the national budget.
The library, dubbed the Castle of Light, was originally supposed to be completed in November 2012, but the deadline has been postponed at least one year due to the cutbacks.
The acoustic concert hall and the contemporary art museum project have been indefinitely frozen.
“The auditor’s report confirms how closely commercial and political interests are intertwined in tiny Latvia. The much-maligned southern bridge in Riga is another case in point.”
This has been so well known for a long time, but hopefully at least now it will start more public conversation. Do you remember, in the beginning of that library project the Estonian building company told they could built it up 40 millions cheaper ? It was like almost illegal to talk about it, but I think it was basically the truth. I do not think fourty, but direction was right. Now, next step would be to start “hanging” the quilty ones. But it´s the different story.
I think there will be a plenty of hided skeletons left if talking about politicians and business here in Latvia. All those fat years and nothing left. It can not be possible without wasting and loundering money.