Requested by the MR group last September, the hearing of the SNCB before the Chamber's mobility committee on Mons station took place this afternoon.
The modernisation project for Mons station, initiated in 2001, has undergone a complex evolution and significant delays. Initially, it envisaged a simple footbridge and a surface car park for a budget of €37 million. The scope of the project evolved to include an architectural and intermodal station-bridge, two underground car parks and eco-friendly facilities, with an estimated cost of €340 million in 2024. A cost that will ultimately be far from the final amount which, according to this afternoon's hearings, could reach €480 million!
For MR federal MPs Gilles Foret and Vincent Scourneau, this explosion of the initial budget is incomprehensible: "How could the budgets have been allowed to spiral like this? We're now talking about half a billion euros, while we know the SNCB is struggling to finish works elsewhere in the country, such as the RER. These overruns are catastrophic and reflect carelessness in management at every level."
In 2021, an audit by the Court of Auditors, commissioned by the Chamber of Representatives, pointed to problems of planning and budgetary management as well as shortcomings in terms of transparency, equality and competitive tendering.
In committee, representatives of the Court of Auditors repeated the lack of information provided by the SNCB.
The financial impact is also marked by an initial underestimation of costs: the car park budget rose from €4.7 million to €43.4 million (+818%), and the station budget from €38.4 million to €107.9 million (+181%).