Why Infrastructure Is So Expensive
Lack of accountability is an important, perhaps even the most important, part of the problem:<p>With private projects if a project is overdue or if it is exceeding the originally projected costs either of the parties will be held accountable, either through civil liability enforced by a contract or in simple economic terms.<p>With public projects there generally is no such accountability. If a public project is delayed and it costs more than planned the public purchaser (the state, city, you name it)  - and by extension taxpayers will simply cough up the money, put up with the inconvenience of yet another unfinished and out-of-repair piece of infrastructure and move on.<p>If we want to change that creating the right incentives is only one side of the coin. The other side is holding both civil servants and politicians accountable for the public projects they&#x27;re responsible for.<p>Given the amount of money typically involved in these projects personal financial liability wouldn&#x27;t be practical. Disciplinary consequences for gross negligence or the outright nepotism rampant with that sort of projects shouldn&#x27;t be out of the question though. I find it unacceptable that civil servants and politicians who demonstrably and deliberately waste tax money continue to climb the ladder with apparently no care for the damage they cause.