Saudi Arabia’s construction of its megacity project NEOM is projected to cost almost $9 trillion and take over five decades to complete, an internal audit has revealed.
Neon was always the stupidest idea ever.
Compared to the initial cost of $500 billion previously set for the project’s completion, the new cost projected by the audit reaches $8.8 trillion, with the project also reportedly facing another 55 years of construction.
That’s only an $8.3 trillion shortfall. They’ve planned for 5.7% of the needed funds. The rest should be easy to raise.
That cost amounts to more than 25 times the amount of Saudi Arabia’s annual budget, with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund – the Public Investment Fund (PIF) – itself worth only $925 billion.
Ok. So the PIF can cover about 10% and the rest can come be setting aside 40% of Saudi Arabia’s income for the next 55 years.
It’s not like their income is likely to drop in that time frame. Oil isn’t going anywhere.
According to the audit, there was “evidence of deliberate manipulation” by “certain members of management”.
Say it’s not so!
I love me some mega-projects, but as much as I’d love to see Neom succeed, I will be absolutely shocked if it ever becomes something more than a big ditch in the desert.
This is that proposed city that’s just a big rectangle/straight line in the desert?
Yep.
It might be a long straight line, so everything will be as far away from everything else as geometrically possible, but at least it will have a hyperloop inside to quickly travel between parts of the line… Oh wait
50 years would be 2075, assuming that they don’t run out of money or lose interest by then. The World Cup in 2034 is slightly before 2075. Hence, is the plan to host it in a construction site or doing it digitally in their lovely digital model of the stadium?
Give the players and refs VR rigs and let them work from home
Just passing a bunch of money around at the top.
