Some of you might remember last year's disaster when the city archives here
in Cologne fell down into the U-Bahn construction site. In the past few days
the latest scandal has emerged: it seems that only about 17% of the
reinforcing rods called for in the concrete for the subway itself were
actually used to reinforce the tunnel walls, foundations, etc.; the rest
seems to have been sold. The company overseeing the project (once hailed as
the largest construction project in Europe) is trying to blame a foreman.
Since, a little over a year ago (and just before the archives fell down the
hole) the project leaders tried to blame archaeologists for cost overruns,
I'm cynically wondering how we're going to get the blame this time.
For what it is worth: the archaeology was done by about 4 or 5 local
companies; a couple of big British units put in bids, as did a Polish
university. These were all rejected as being too expensive. Among other
things, I'm sure the Brits would have used workers experienced in working on
large infrastructure projects who could maybe act professionally enough to
get things done on time and to specification; the Poles would have been
cheaper just because Polish wages are below German wages and students work
cheaply. The Germans were cheaper still in large part because they were able
to exploit cheap German labour: students and other long-term unemployed are
able to augment their social benefits up to 400 euros/month (benefit to
employer: no unemployment or health insurance costs to pay). So many of the
workers on the U-Bahn archaeology were full-time, few were archaeologists.
And even with (or perhaps due to the delays caused by) such cost-cutting
measures, the construction crews tried to blame the archaeologists for
several hundred thousand euros' worth of cost overruns (many times more than
the entire archaeological costs).
Just an update on some of the legal consequences:
http://www.koeln.de/koeln/nachrichten/ubahnskandal_justiz_ermittelt_jetzt_au
ch_wegen_betrugs_279140.html