Pike River costs blow out again

Stuff reports:

An operation to re-enter the Pike River mine is on track to exceed its $36 million budget and require a taxpayer top-up.

Pike River Recovery Agency forecasts show the project running out of money mid-2020 – prompting the need for more cash from the Government to complete its work, expected to be finished by the end of November 2020. 

The agency was set up in January 2018 to re-enter the mine drift with the hope of finding out why 29 men died in a series of explosions in November 2010.

I hear the blow out may be as much as $10 milion.

The Government originally budgeted $7.6m a year for three years, totalling $23m. It then topped up the budget to $36m. 

So the within two years the costs look to be twice what the Government said.

If the cost gets over $40 million, then basically it is $1.5 million per family which could have been given direct to the families rather than on reentering the mine.