Trump criticizes cost of U.N. headquarters renovation

By Paul D. Colford
December 4, 2006
Centre Daily News
Original Source: http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/nation/16159429.htm

NEW YORK - The $1.9 billion budget for the massive overhaul of the United Nations headquarters is being blamed on the escalating costs of construction, real estate and security.
But critics of the project say the nearly 60 percent increase in the price tag has more to do with bumbling bureaucrats than rising costs.
It's the most ridiculous construction development I have ever witnessed, Donald Trump told the New York Daily News last week.
It's being run by a bunch of incompetents and it's a disgrace to this country, he added. It should cost $700 million at most, but I bet it will now end up costing $3.5 billion.
Trump charged before a Senate subcommittee last year that gross incompetence ... or corruption had driven up U.N. renovation costs.
Departing Secretary-General Kofi Annan presented a progress report on the project's budget to the international body's General Assembly last week.
The report was not released to the public, but the Daily News has learned the following details:
_Blast protection and other recommended security upgrades will tack $166 million onto the construction bill.
_Leases for off-site offices and conference rooms, which displaced staffers and diplomats will use during the renovation and asbestos removal, jumped an estimated $50.2 million, to a new total of $214.5 million.
_The cost of building a temporary, 100,000-square-foot conference hall on the U.N.'s north lawn - for the General Assembly - rose $11.4 million, to $66.1 million.
The U.N.'s 192 member countries share the cost of the overhaul, with the United States shouldering more than $300 million of the burden.
It took three years and $65 million to build the United Nations headquarters more than five decades ago. Since then, the buildings have received little maintenance or improvement.
The Fire Department has reported that the buildings do not meet fire, safety and building code standards. There are also concerns about asbestos, electrical and communications wiring.
In a November report to Congress, the U.S. Government Accountability Office acknowledged the need for renovations at the 18-acre complex. But the agency has repeatedly flagged concerns about how the U.N. bids, and contracts for goods and services.
The reliance on existing U.N. procurement practices could impact the effective implementation of the project, the GAO said.
Last April, the GAO found that weak internal controls over the U.N.'s procurement operations posed a significant risk of waste, fraud and abuse.
The renovation could have been easier and cheaper, U.N. supporters say, if state lawmakers had cleared the U.N.'s plan to build a 35-story office tower on the site of the nearby Robert Moses Playground.
But a bill that would submit the tower to the city's land-use review - the first step in the approval process - stalled in Albany because of some lawmakers' anger over the U.N.'s multibillion-dollar oil-for-food scandal.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., citing the U.N.'s importance to the New York economy, have both urged state legislators to pass the measure.