Transcript
PANOS PREVEDOUROS: It is still like about one third of the project which is the most difficult because it goes through urban Honolulu. It hasn't gone out to bed, so we don't know what the actual companies who are going to build it, what kind of payments they want. So it is a guesstimate of the authority that supervises the project that eventually the cost is gonna be something in the order of 10 billion dollars. Therefore since based on past laws that were collecting only about 7 point something, that they would need like 2 point something billion to bridge the gap. And what happened then, as you said, we just concluded a special session and the legislature passed the law that is estimated because this is all future taxes to produce 2.4 billion dollars which may or may not be sufficient for completion.
SARA VUI-TALITU: Do you think it will ever come to an end?
PP: Well it will come to an end because everybody is quite upset about the total price tag for even this fairly shortened version of the project because the original plan that people brought into it was a 36 mile project. This, that they are trying to conclude now, it is a 20 mile project. And by then everybody will be fed up because nobody will want to touch it for decades if not generations because they know what is the approximate cost per mile and of course it is going to be a no-no for any expansions because of the cost.
SV: What have been the ongoing challenges to this project?
PP: Total and complete incompetency in mismanagement because recently published an article and added up the construction costs. And I looked at them and said well the construction companies do not seem to be gouging us because if we projected the actual construction cost, and the cost of buying the rail equivalent at about 4 billion dollars then on top of that people will need to add soft cost. The highest soft cost is 50 percent, so 4 billion plus 2 billion makes 6 billion. How do we get from 6 billion to 10 billion? Is it 4 billion of waste or 4 billion of fraud? Something along those lines because there is no normal explanation for such overage.
SV: So do you think with this extra money they have passed to get with this legislation are there enough checks and balances for say auditing purposes?
PP: Well they do request a detailed audit but they don't exactly mandate it and the state auditor will conduct it which is not exactly an independent authority and their talent into such complex and unique project is not going to be the best. We should have put aside monies which is really trivial given the overall scope and a couple of million dollars at most would have done it for a national forensic expert on transit systems to come and look at what is really happening here and how come our transit system is two to three times more expensive than other comparable US systems.
SV: It does make one question where that money has gone.
PP: Right. Naturally now they open another can of worms because in addition to the regular excise or general sales tax they also passed a 1 percent tourism tax so if you come and visit and stay at a hotel you will pay for the rail now and this is a state tax so if the hotel is on another island of Maui or Kauai, that tax is taken for the rail in Honolulu so those outer islands feel quite miffed as instead of getting a transit accommodation tax, that one percent is taken out off the top and given to Honolulu to build the rail.
