Rehabilitation of the country\u2019s biggest and oldest soccer mecca, Kamuzu Stadium, is yet to be completed 11 years after K150 million was set aside for that purpose.<\/p>\n
In 2005, government allocated the money after inspectors from world soccer governing body, Fifa, condemned the stadium, citing cracks and also that toilets were in bad shape.<\/p>\n
Director of Sports at the time, Bester Kalombo, said while the funds earmarked for the project were aimed at addressing Fifa\u2019s concerns, government had already planned to carry out rehabilitation works at the stadium.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is part of government\u2019s campaign for the 2010 Fifa World Cup. We would like to construct new facilities and improve existing ones to attract foreign investors ahead of the World Cup,\u201d Kalombo was quoted as saying.<\/p>\n
But 11 years down the line, most toilets for spectators at the open stands are not functioning.<\/p>\n
The contractor had started working on them but did not complete the job. Various items were vandalized—leaving government with the task of buying replacements.<\/p>\n
A brick wall on the western side of the stadium is still incomplete as the contractor [name withheld], is said to have abandoned the site by gradually decreasing the number of workers on site until there was no one left.<\/p>\n
The Ministry of Sports and Culture hired the contractor to erect the brick wall and refurbish toilets at a cost of K160,000.<\/p>\n
Stadium Supervisor, Charles Mhango, said the contractor abandoned the project after the Flames played Ivory Coast in October, 2009.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe began to gradually withdraw his workers after the game and by February, 2010, there was no worker in sight from the contractor despite the works being incomplete,\u201d Mhango explained.<\/p>\n
A Mr. Sokosa of the Ministry of Public Works and Infrastructure, who was one of the supervisors at the site, said that he was aware that the rehabilitation works had not been completed.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we will take necessary action. We know the contractor has not completed doing what he was supposed to do,\u201d Sokosa said without disclosing the course of action to be taken.<\/p>\n
Plans were also being made to replace the stadium\u2019s scoreboard which stopped functioning.<\/p>\n
Ministry of Sports and Culture spokesperson, Christopher Mbukwa, said the contractor was paid based on the amount of work he completed.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we will continue maintaining the stadium considering that Blantyre is a powerhouse of football in the country. We will be doing all we can to ensure that it is in good shape because people of Blantyre need it for football and other activities,\u201d Mbukwa said.<\/p>\n
The future of the stadium, the only one to host high-profile games in Blantyre, is in doubt as President Peter Mutharika recently announced that the facility would be demolished.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rehabilitation of the country\u2019s biggest and oldest soccer mecca, Kamuzu Stadium, is yet to be completed 11 years after K150 million was set aside for that purpose. In 2005, government allocated the money after inspectors from world soccer governing body, Fifa, condemned the stadium, citing cracks and also that toilets were in bad shape. Director […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":26864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26861"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26865,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26861\/revisions\/26865"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}