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World Trade Center

February 9, 2012 by · Comments Off on World Trade Center 

World Trade Center, The agency that is building the new World Trade Center is “dysfunctional” and has let costs get out of control on the $14.8 billion project, auditors said Tuesday.

The projected cost of the complex has risen $3.8 billion since 2008, when it was estimated at $11 billion, Navigant Consulting, Inc., said in its audit of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Third parties have promised to reimburse the Port Authority for much of the construction, but the agency’s remaining bill is still expected to reach $7.7 billion, up 28 percent from the last estimate of $6 billion, auditors said.

The audit was ordered by the governors of New York and New Jersey. It strongly criticized the Port Authority, which also runs New York area airports, seaports and Hudson River crossings.

The Port Authority is “a challenged and dysfunctional organization suffering from a lack of consistent leadership, a siloed underlying bureaucracy, poorly coordinated capital planning processes, insufficient cost controls, and a lack of transparent and effective oversight of the World Trade Center program that has obscured full awareness of billions of dollars in exposure to the Port Authority,” auditors wrote.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie called the increase “staggering” in a joint statement.

“This record of historic failure must be reversed,” they said.

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