Is Spain squandering money on public infrastructure projects? Report says yes

New study unearths signs of wasteful assignment of funds for high-speed rail, roads, airports and more

Has Spain been squandering cash on public works tasks? a brand new study that checked out  decades of public investment might suggest so.
Just the high-speed railway system, referred to as the AVE, bills for inappropriate allocations of public money within the range of €26.2 billion in the 1995-2016 period, consistent with a record known as “Approximation to the geography of wasteful spending in Spain: Evaluation of the remaining two decades,” a joint assignment of the universities of Barcelona, Girona, Valencia, Cantabria, Tenerife, Seville, Málaga, Alicante and Madrid’s Complutense university.


The report, which became published with the aid of the association of Spanish Geographers, estimates that between 1995 and 2016 government agencies spent extra than €81 billion on “infrastructure that was needless, deserted, underutilized or poorly programmed.”

And this figure could surpass €97 billion in the near future, factoring in the amounts which have already been pledged.

The authors of the study said there are four primary methods wherein public cash has been wasted: corruption, underutilized projects, useless projects, and inadequate priority-setting.

Of all the wasteful spending, over a third has long past into the AVE railway system for projects that did no longer produce the type of social advantages predicted of such investments. There had been “too many multi-million-euro train stations, closed lines, stretches that have been dropped midway thru creation, needless lines, and cost overruns.”

“All of it was achieved without a proper cost/advantage analysis, and frequently on the basis of estimates of future users or income supported via a scenario of economic euphoria that turned into as evident because it turned into fleeting,” provides the document.

Researchers underscored the cost overruns at the AVE lines connecting Madrid, Barcelona and the French border (over €eight.nine billion) and at the Pajares Tunnel (€3.5 billion).