Roundtable LegCo Member Michael Tien criticized the government on Monday (Oct. 23) for going over budget by over 70% for the building of a new MTR station in the New Territories, calling the cost overruns "outrageous".
The government disclosed last week in a report to the Legislative Council that the new Kwu Tung station would now likely cost HK$5.9 billion, HK$2.4 billion more than first estimated for 2021.
Tien, who is a member of LegCo's transport panel, said there had been no proper explanation from the government.
"The government explained the 2021 estimation is based on a 2015 or 2016 set of assumptions. And then they went on to explain that the area of construction has increased by 20 percent and due to inflation from 2015 until now," he said.
But a former president of the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers, Aaron Bok, defended the government's estimate, saying the original estimate was made years ago and that rising costs should be taken into account.
The government also announced last week that a project that involves the construction of a 2.3-kilometre trunk road in Sha Tin is now expected to cost more than HK$7.1 billion, far higher than the original estimate of HK$1.1 billion in 2006.
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