South Africa's 2010 World Cup budget is bloated; the most recent count for new stadiums, personnel and administrative costs is $2 billion, the National Treasury said on Wednesday. A little more than half the total will go toward the construction and upgrading of the nation's stadiums, as well as the development of the surrounding precincts. The rest will go to the host cities to help ramp up the woeful state of public transportation services available in South Africa's cities. This, by the way, is roughly $700 million more than the previous estimate the committee made just after South Africa won the bid to host the tournament. Deputy Finance Minister Jabu Molekti dismissed notions that the money being spent on stadiums and infrastructure, particularly the 70,000 capacity stadiums planned in Cape Town and Durban, will prove to be waste once the tournament is over. "2010 is an opportunity for government to invest in infrastructure, to improve the efficiencies of the host cities," Molekti told reporters. "We would still be spending money on infrastructure whether or not we had 2010." Read the original story...