{"id":53828,"date":"2017-09-20T10:26:35","date_gmt":"2017-09-20T08:26:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=53828"},"modified":"2017-09-20T10:26:35","modified_gmt":"2017-09-20T08:26:35","slug":"long-wait-for-kamuzu-stadium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2017\/09\/20\/long-wait-for-kamuzu-stadium\/","title":{"rendered":"Long wait for Kamuzu Stadium"},"content":{"rendered":"

F<\/strong>our months after the then minister of Sports, Youth, Labour and Manpower Development, Henry Mussa, announced the start of renovations at Kamuzu Stadium, nothing has happened at the Blantyre facility.<\/p>\n

Mussa\u2019s successor, Francis Kasaila, on Monday said he was not sure when the exercise would begin.<\/p>\n

Mussa had claimed that the stadium would be ready by next month.<\/p>\n

But Kasaila said it was difficult for him to mention the actual date for the start of the renovations.<\/p>\n

He said the government was waiting for the shipment of an artificial turf, which is reported to have been bought from United States of America.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe main issue at the stadium is the turf. We have paid 50 percent of the price of the turf. The turf can be shipped any day, thereby making it difficult for me to say when the renovation exercise begins. However, we are also working on identifying a contractor to work on some areas that need attention,\u201d Kasaila said.<\/p>\n

He then referred The Daily Times <\/em>to Director of Sports, Jameson Ndalama, for details. Ndalama was not available as we went to press.<\/p>\n

Kamuzu Stadium Manager, Ambilike Mwaungulu, said they were aware of the plans renovations.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut at the meantime, we will continue with our routine minor maintenances as we wait for the initial exercise to begin,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Weekend Nation <\/em>reported recently that the ministry identified ACT Global to supply and install the Xtreme Turf DX60 at $499, 520 (about K362 million) with a $45 000 (about K32 million) discount.<\/p>\n

However, reports indicate that the government paid K168 million for the turf.<\/p>\n

A source said the process was at an advanced stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe minister (Kasaila) is trying to avoid a scenario like the one where honourable Mussa said the facility would be ready by October. But I can assure you that everything is at a very advanced stage. Blantyre teams should just keep their fingers crossed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The government allocated K1.5 billion for the renovation of the facility.<\/p>\n

The closure of the stadium has forced Blantyre football giants, Nyasa Big Bullets and Be Forward Wanderers, to use Chilomoni and Balaka as home grounds, respectively.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Four months after the then minister of Sports, Youth, Labour and Manpower Development, Henry Mussa, announced the start of renovations at Kamuzu Stadium, nothing has happened at the Blantyre facility. Mussa\u2019s successor, Francis Kasaila, on Monday said he was not sure when the exercise would begin. Mussa had claimed that the stadium would be ready […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":53833,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53828","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\/53828","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=53828"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53834,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53828\/revisions\/53834"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}