The twenty million dollar Dive: The story of Lebanon's unfinished Olympic swimming pool

When the first diver in the world inaugurates the Winter Olympic Swimming Pool in Naccache, it will be an event as significant as the moment when the first human landed on the moon.

After twenty-two years since the Cabinet's decision on October 16, 2002, to start work on the Winter Olympic Swimming Pool, it is not yet complete. It is a long dive into the sea of wasted public money.

The diving into the pool of Lebanese squandering of money shows that the Olympic Swimming Pool works started in November 2004, when Aztec Company signed a voluntary agreement with the Ministry of Youth and Sports during the era of Sebouh Hovnanian for approximately $8.5 million. 

The commitment period for execution was set at fifteen months. 

The deadline was extended for four months, and the Winter Olympic Swimming Pool was not completed on June 17, 2006, as planned.

Furthermore, contracts were made through reconciliation instead of a bidding process, as mandated by the Cabinet's decision. 

The settlement contracts included Pascal Jihaymi's office to secure pool studies for about $110,000 and Carl Technical Office for Studies and Construction for about $200,000.


All of this money was wasted because many technical errors were found in the study. The mentioned contractor needed to be provided with electro-mechanical maps, which contradicts the most basic construction principles, as some reports say.

The contractor requested modifications, considering that the specifications needed to meet the purpose of constructing an Olympic swimming pool. 

The consultant refused the modifications because they did not comply with the conditions book of the contract. 

Thus, without further "diving" into details, nearly nine million dollars were wasted in the first phase, and the Winter Olympic Swimming Pool was not completed.

With the money wasted in the Ministry of Youth and Sports stage, the Minister of Youth and Sports in 2006, Ahmed Fatfat, wanted to transfer the project's completion from the Ministry to the Council for Development and Reconstruction. 

This was decided by the Cabinet in June 2006. 

Here, we began a new stage of paying money to complete the pool. 

The consultancy contract was terminated amicably with the payment of dues.

The new consultancy firm, Rafik Khouri, was appointed by the Council for Development and Reconstruction to conduct studies worth $458,000. Hicon Company was tasked with building the pool in two phases:

A phase worth 9.8 million dollars and an optional phase that requires 5.7 million dollars. 

Days passed and Hicon Company received 9.8 million dollars without completing the Olympic swimming pool. 

The work remained in the same state, especially after the Lebanese Swimming Federation requested modifications to the Olympic pool and the adoption of a new generation approved in the design and installation of basins, knowing that the funding for the second phase was unavailable.

If the project started in 2004 with 8.5 million dollars with Aztec without completing the pool and the paid cost increased to around 20 million dollars with Hicon without completing the pool, the project now needs 10.5 million dollars to complete it with the modifications requested by the Lebanese Swimming Federation, which brings the total cost to 30 million dollars.

This is how twenty million dollars have been wasted so far on a swimming pool and a diving pool only.