Tokyo Olympics say costs $12.6B; Audit report says much more

Tokyo Olympic organizers said Friday they are spending 1.35 trillion Japanese yen about $12.6 billion to stage next year's games.

Organizers said the expenditure is unchanged from a year ago, although robust sponsorship and ticket sales have generated a contingency fund of an extra $300 million.

However, Japan's National Audit Board, in a 177-page report prepared for the national legislature, said next year's Olympics will cost much more than organizers say.

The audit lists an added $9.7 billion (1.06 trillion yen) it says are Olympic-related costs that have not been included. In addition, the city of Tokyo has previously said it would spend another $7.4 billion (810 trillion yen) on Olympic-related projects.

Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike said at the time the spending was "for projects directly and indirectly related to the games. She said this included building barrier-free facilities for Paralympic athletes, training programs for volunteers, and advertising and tourism plans.

Organizers argue that many of these costs are not tied directly to the Olympics.

The audit board, however, came up with similar findings a year ago.

As in the previous year, their report did not classify the cost of these items and activities based on their direct relevance to the games," Tokyo organizers said in a statement to the Associated Press.

It aggregated a wide range of projects that could be seen as contributing to the games, including those that were implemented without regard to the games."
"We think it's because they always have to be on time. There's no way you can move the opening dates. ... So all you can do when problems begin and problems always begin on projects of this size it to throw more money at the project. And that's what you do at the Olympics."