Who is actually accountable when a project goes almost $120 million, or 180 per cent, overbudget? Vancouver city hall declined to answer that question or make anyone available for an interview to explain what happened

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The huge cost overruns surrounding Vancouver’s new PNE Amphitheatre demonstrate the need for an overhaul in how the city manages big capital projects, one mayoral candidate says.

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Responding to this week’s news that the amphitheatre budget has nearly tripled from an original estimate of $65 million in 2021 to $183 million this year, candidate Kareem Allam says this is only the latest example of Vancouver’s “atrocious record of managing major capital projects.”

This is hardly unique to Vancouver, Allam says, pointing to a series of cost overruns at the municipal, regional, provincial and federal levels.

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At the local level, Allam says that if he and his new party, the Vancouver Liberals, win next October’s election, they will establish project oversight boards to ensure projects are delivered on time and on budget.

“One of the challenges that we’re seeing is that in every single one of these major capital projects, staff ultimately drives the process,” Allam said. “What we need is actually a constructively adversarial process, where a project management board reports directly to (city) council in an adversarial way. Not to be violently adversarial, but........

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