A controversial plan to help protect Venice from flooding was in doubt yesterday after it was revealed that the project has a budget shortfall of almost 3bn (2bn), with little likelihood of the extra money being found. According to a report compiled at the behest of Italy's recently elected centre-left government, the Moses flood barrier system will cost around 4.3bn but only 1.46bn is available, leaving a gaping hole in its future financing. he project was inaugurated in May 2003 by then premier Silvio Berlusconi and was one of the jewels in the crown of his conservative government's infrastructure proposals. Work has already started and the barriers are due to be completed in 2011. The financial review was ordered by Italy's finance minister, Tommaso Padoa Schioppa, as part of an investigation into all of the country's outstanding public works. He has reported that there is a total shortfall of 115bn for planned infrastructure projects. He said many of the projects, including Moses, should never have been approved because they could not be funded properly. The mayor of Venice, Massimo Cacciari, a well-known opponent of Moses, is now leading calls for other proposals to be considered. "There are alternatives to Moses that are just as effective as stopping the high tides, but cost half as much," he said. Moses consists of 79 steel gates, which would rise up from the ocean floor and form barriers to prevent high tides from the Adriatic Sea rushing into the Venetian lagoon and causing floods at sites such as St Mark's Square. The scheme has been supported by many international experts as well as Venice's regional government, the Venice Water Authority and the Commission to Safeguard Venice. It is opposed by many environmentalists, conservation groups and local people who are concerned about the costs involved. Earlier this year the European Commission opened infringement procedures against Italy for failing to produce a study of the impact Moses would have on wild birds living in the lagoon. Venice's centre-right president Giancarlo Galan said opposition to Moses was evidence of the centre-left's tendency to say no to all major infrastructure projects. "The No party has come back to life and, as usual, it has come back objecting to Moses," he said. Experts say there are three main reasons for the high water levels in Venice; the rising floor in the lagoon caused by silt, the undermining of the islands by the extraction of methane gas in the sea off Venice and the overall increase in sea levels, attributed to global warming.