LDA needs to explain how black hole in finances came about- Dee Doocey

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Wed 24th Jun 2009

Dee Doocey, the Liberal Democrat London Assembly Olympic Spokesperson, commenting on today's reports of a £100 million black hole in the 2012 Olympics accounts of the London Development Agency said:

"The reported £100 million 'black hole' is because insufficient provision was made to compensate businesses that were removed from the Olympic Park.

"To put this in perspective, £100 million is a quarter of the entire London Development Agency's annual budget so a number of questions need to be answered:

1. The LDA started to move the businesses in 2006 so why was this lack of provision

not picked up by their auditors since then?

2. Why did the person in charge of finance at the LDA to whom the current auditors

are no doubt reporting to, not pick up this discrepancy?

3.How many more 'black holes' are there that we know nothing about?

4. Will the KPMG report into this fiasco be made public so that we can see how

this happened and that those responsible are made to pay for their mistakes?

"The LDA say they can cope with this £100 million 'black hole' without resorting to additional borrowing because their current budget is "under spent. If they had so much money sloshing around why did they cut so many grants to small community groups and businesses whose very survival is the key to London's economic recovery?"