I said it years ago and I will say it again because it is the right thing to do. Right from the onset of the project, it was clear that Bingu National Stadium (BNS) of Lilongwe was a right facility built in a wrong country at a wrong time.<\/p>\n
It was like someone who could not afford to keep a Toyota Carina TI on the road\u2014servicing it and buying gasoline\u2014had acquired a loan to buy a Lamborghini Veneno.<\/p>\n
And in the case of BNS, the problem is that it is our sons\/daughters and grandsons\/ daughters who would bear the brunt of our folly, which this white elephant represents.<\/p>\n
Get me right. With Malawi\u2019s population rising to 18 million, having such a facility was inevitable. But if you ask me, the generation that deserved such a stadium was of the 1980s and 70s because they had a sense of ownership and discipline.<\/p>\n
They knew what it took and meant to care for property\u2014 public and private. Not this generation.<\/p>\n
If people vandalise a signpost leading to a hospital, then surely they do not deserve anything good.<\/p>\n
In the mistaken name of freedom\u2014whatever that means\u2014people just do not care for anything, including themselves.<\/p>\n
Certainly, not BNS which would see the government repaying K2 billion (about $70 million) from our taxes to the Chinese government, which sponsored the project through a concessional loan, in the next 20 years.<\/p>\n
Surely, Malawi does not deserve such an Olympic standard stadium that is replete with a state-of-the-art CCtv, comfy seating and parking areas, conference and business rooms.<\/p>\n
The moment I stepped on BNS last year, I knew that I was at the right stadium located in a wrong country.<\/p>\n
I was, therefore, not surprised to learn through The Daily Times edition of Thursday that Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi had disconnected power at the facility over an unpaid K16 million bill.<\/p>\n
Issues of unpaid utility bills have been common since the stadium opened its doors. And so are theft and vandalism.<\/p>\n
Connecting BNS management\u2019s failure to pay the electricity bill to the re-opening of Kamuzu Stadium, which is now hosting major football games in Blantyre, might be true.<\/p>\n
But that alone cannot be the reason for the blackout at BNS.<\/p>\n
You do not build such a big stadium if you cannot take care of a smaller 5,000-seater BAT Ground in Blantyre. You need a business plan to guide you in running a facility such as BNS. Apart from hosting prayers and football games, what else is BNS able to host?<\/p>\n
When the government accepted to have the Chinese build the facility, what was the original business plan to keep the stadium self-sustainable?<\/p>\n
Therefore, before BNS becomes dilapidated like Kamuzu Stadium and BAT Ground, the government must quickly decide whether to maintain its management team or outsource it.<\/p>\n
If the government is not decisive enough on BNS, it would be a great betrayal for the next generations to be paying for our folly. Under-utilising any asset comes at a cost and it is huge for BNS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I said it years ago and I will say it again because it is the right thing to do. Right from the onset of the project, it was clear that Bingu National Stadium (BNS) of Lilongwe was a right facility built in a wrong country at a wrong time. It was like someone who could […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":57999,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70895","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\/70895","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=70895"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70898,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70895\/revisions\/70898"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}