The proposal by the Government to construct a stadium at Njamba Park in Blantyre sounds awkward.
\nMinister of Sports, Francis Kasaila, was quoted in a local daily as saying the decision follows an agreement reached by his ministry, Blantyre City Council and the Department of Lands.
\nThe whole brigade from the three powerful government organisations remorselessly agreeing to destroy a park for the sake of construction of the stadium which has no proper budget, is a shame and unheard of.
\nThis is supposed to be prime land.
\nIt will not be an overstatement to say that there is lack of seriousness in terms of town planning here.
\nInstead of improving the city\u2019s recreational parks so that people should be enjoying themselves, government has been carelessly destroying such facilities that help preserve the natural beauty of our surroundings.
\nThis also means that our children have no recreational parks where to read their books as was the case in the good old days.
\nNo wonder there is rampant moral decay among most of our youth as they have no place to help them shape their future. There is an adage which goes: \u2018an idle mind is the devil\u2019s workshop.\u2019
\nThere are so many idle places in Blantyre where a stadium can be constructed. Constructing the stadium at Njamba Park will be tantamount to erasing the country\u2019s history.
\nRemember, this is the place where the late Pope John Paul 11 held his first mass when he came to Malawi in 1989, when I was just 17 years old and had just completed my post primary school education.
\nNow when I drive past the area and tell my daughters the significance of the place, they do not take me seriously because the place looks spooky and deserted.
\nThere is nothing of significance that one can see at Njamba despite the place having been the venue of one of the rallies that helped change the country\u2019s politics from one party system of government to a multiparty type of governance.
\nIt is sad, very sad indeed, that the place does not have any symbol of significance and has been left in an abandoned state.
\nElsewhere, such historical places are protected and are treated with the dignity they deserve.
\nYou cannot expect someone to just wake up one day and dig up such a place just to construct a structure of their choice.
\nOn the other hand, on security grounds, stadiums are supposed to be build outside the city centre in case of violence and traffic conveniences. We have had enough experience on what happens at Kamuzu Stadium when there is a riot.
\nCars belonging to people who have nothing to do with football have been smashed with innocent people sustaining injuries.
\nNjamba is too close to townships and residents cannot be safe when riots break out. But the problem is that the country has no proper town planning. No wonder such senseless decisions are being made and no one sees anything wrong.
\nAfter all, constructing a stadium in Blantyre is just a pipe dream. It may just be politicking at its best.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The proposal by the Government to construct a stadium at Njamba Park in Blantyre sounds awkward. Minister of Sports, Francis Kasaila, was quoted in a local daily as saying the decision follows an agreement reached by his ministry, Blantyre City Council and the Department of Lands. The whole brigade from the three powerful government organisations […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":19700,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57679","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\/57679","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=57679"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57680,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57679\/revisions\/57680"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}