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Eddie Chikamhi
Senior Sports Reporter
ABOUT 40 sports infrastructure in and around community centres are targeted for refurbishment by the end of the year as the Government seeks to provide opportunities to young and upcoming talents across the nation.
This was said by the Minister of Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation, Kirsty Coventry, during a question and answer session in the Senate on Thursday.
Most of the community centres, which used to be vibrant hubs for sport and arts development in the past, currently lay in sorry state due to years of dilapidation and poor maintenance.
Coventry said a process has since begun to have them working again. The Senate was concerned that a lot of money was put into the construction of those facilities, only for them to be left to decay, without serving purpose.
“(In terms of the) sports infrastructure in and around community centres, we have put a policy in place with our youth interact centres where we are working with communities to identify spaces that have sports and arts centres.
“The Ministry has a new policy where we will go in, refurbish and build new facilities. We have the capacity for this year to target 40 of these around the country, four per province.
“We will continue pushing for more and more of those recreational spaces to be jointly done, funding coming from the Ministry and oversight coming from the community,” said Coventry.
She also addressed the progress on the National Sports Stadium, Magamba Hockey Stadium and Chitungwiza Aquatic Complex, which are being transferred to her ministry from the Ministry of Local Government.
These facilities have also deteriorated to unacceptable levels and are currently unable to host international events.
“In terms of the infrastructure, as a ministry, we never had any infrastructure falling under us until last year when the Aquatic Centre, the National Sports Stadium and the Hockey Stadium were transferred over to us from the Local Government. Still today, that has not been completed.
“There are specific departments that sit within Local Government that need to be transferred over to us. It is an ongoing process but as for those three, there are plans even within the budget and special budget that we set aside for the National Sports Stadium.
“Those three will be the focus within our Ministry to ensure that we get adequate funding to get them back to state-of-the art. It will take a bit of time,” said Coventry.
There was also concern about the deterioration at golf clubs, some of which have been converted to other uses because of the neglect.
“In terms of golf courses, none of them fall under our ministry, so unfortunately we have no jurisdiction to step in and help. Most of the golf courses are either run privately or through councils. As I said, we have no jurisdiction on that,” said Coventry.
The Minister also said she was confident the processes that are currently underway for the readmission of Zimbabwe back into the FIFA family will be successful.
Coventry said they have kept lines of communication with FIFA open and were happy with the responses coming from the world football governing body headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland.
She was responding to a question by Senator Bekithemba Ndlovu who had wanted to know what the ministry was doing towards bringing Zimbabwe back to the international football tournaments.
“I would like to thank the Hon. Senator for the question. Mr. President, we are in consultations with FIFA which is the world body and CAF which is the African body.
“They are having consultations with the Sports and Recreation Commission, along with the new ZIFA executive. Those conversations are continuing and they are continuing in a positive way.
“Hopefully we will have an update for you in the next coming weeks. We have seen some good movement in terms of the recognition of the sexual harassment and abuse that were done to our female referees and the acknowledgement of that by FIFA.
“We, as Zimbabwe, are taking it as a good first step in recovering the relationship between the country and the governing body. That is what I can say right now,” said Coventry.
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