There are now serious questions being asked about the appointment of Dow Chemical as sponsor of the 2012 Olympic stadium. Almost everyone who has looked at this issue asks one simple question: “Given the obvious risks of plastering Dow’s name on the stadium, and given how much of a PR blinder Lord Coe and co had played until that announcement on August 4, surely there must have been other forces and pressures?”
Last year, we and Parliament were told repeatedly that the reason the wrap was being dropped in the comprehensive spending review was to save £7million. That is, the buying the wrap as part of a supply deal would have cost £7million. Well, now it seems that was not actually the case. The Olympic Delivery Authority told me after questioning on Friday that their main contractor, Sir Robert McAlpine, had already gone through their own tender process to find a company to supply the wrap. They confirmed that that company was Chepstow-based Architen Landrell. In fact, Architen had already erected eight test panels on the stadium, which were there for about a year until last month.
I have been told that Architen’s official cost for the entire wrap and installation project was £1.5million, which is a touch less than £7million. When I asked Locog about that, they disingenuously said, ‘ah, but the £7million is what had been budgeted for the wrap'(!). Of course, all sorts of questions can be asked about this sleight-of-hand accountancy. For example, if the ODA wasn’t really saving £7million, it has misled the Government and not fulfilled the demands of the spending review.
And if there wasn’t that much of a saving to be made, why drop the wrap deal that had already been agreed? Well, perhaps it was because Dow, which had only just signed up with the IOC to become a £75million global sponsor, had been knocking on the door, eager to get to the forefront of the 2012 Games. Of course, mere members of the public can’t scrutinise this because Locog is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act.
However, a Parliamentary inquiry might have better luck….so here’s the full version of the piece I’ve done in today’s Sunday Express.
AN MP is calling for a full Parliamentary inquiry into Lord Coe’s decision to award Dow Chemical sponsorship of the 2012 Olympic Stadium.
Barry Gardiner said yesterday there were grounds to believe the entire procurement process around the deal was a sham. He is writing to John Whittingdale, the chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport select committee, with his concerns.
The Sunday Express has discovered that MPs may have been misled by Olympics bosses over the savings to be made from the sponsorship contract.
Until October 2010, the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) had been in charge of installing a fabric wrap around the stadium.
The wrap had been needed to improve the stadium’s appearance and to help gusts of wind affecting the performance of athletes inside.
However, the Government then asked the ODA to save £20million as part of the spending review.
Games chiefs then said they could save £7million by dropping the wrap.
However, the ODA now admits that Sir Robert McAlpine, the main contractor building the stadium, had already awarded a wrap deal to Chepstow-based company Architen Landrell.
It is understood that Architen, which had been involved with the 2004 Athens Games, had costed the wrap project at about £1.5million. Anyone revealing those costs publicly was warned about “serious consequences”, the Sunday Express has been told.
Architen had proposed a PVC coated wrap that would be cut up and distributed as a souvenir to 20,000 schools around the country after the Games.
In fact, for most of this year, eight test panels supplied by Architen had been attached to the stadium as part of the original procurement process.
Within a month of the ODA dropping that deal to save money, its sister organisation, the London 2012 Organising Committee announced they had received interest from the private sector to provide the wrap.
It is understood that at the forefront of that interest was Dow Chemical, which had only four months earlier paid the International Olympic Committee about £75million to become a worldwide commercial partner.
Then last February, Locog, which is not subject to scrutiny of the Freedom of Information Act, announced a new tender for the wrap.
Six companies, most of them understood to be British, submitted bids.
Locog has refused to say who they were or what they bid, but the suspicion is that US giant and IOC sponsor Dow was always the favourite.
The bids were assessed a number of criteria with Locog concentrating in particular whether the fabric would be “sustainable” and recyclable.
Dow was announced as the winner in August and Locog now says it was the only bidder not to propose a PVC material.
Instead, it will use a polyethylene fabric, which is recyclable.
Mr Gardiner said: “The public and Parliament have been led to believe that appointing Dow as sponsor would save £7million.
“It would appear in fact that the saving was just £1.5million. This and the entire procurement process needs to be investigated to ensure it was not biased.”
When Locog was asked why it refers to £7million savings figure when the ODA had been told the cost would be about £1.5million, a spokesman said: “The £7million figure was in the publicly funded budget.”
He added: “The procurement process was rigorous and fair.”
Shaun McCarthy, chairman of the Commission for a Sustainable London 2012, which has investigated the procurement, has said: “I can confirm that the Dow Chemical offer was the most sustainable both in terms of the product offered and the current stated corporate responsibility practices of the company.”
Dow’s position as sponsor has caused anger around the world because of its links to the Bhopal gas tragedy in India in 1984.
Although it never owned nor ran the pesticide plant there, it bought the company responsible, Union Carbide, in 2001.
Campaigners are demanding more compensation from Dow.
Trial by Jeory 