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Sikhumbuzo Moyo, Senior Sports Reporter
THE Ministry of Sport and Recreation has no intention to rob Bulawayo of the sports equipment that was procured and used during the highly successful African Union Sports Council Region Five Under 20 Youth Games which were held in the City in 2014.
Responding to Bulawayo City Council claims and subsequent reports carried out by this publication that the government, through the sports Ministry headed by Makhosini Hlongwane, that there were spirited efforts to defraud the city council of the legacy of the games by systematically transferring the equipment to the capital the sports ministry said all it was taking was furnisher which it said was not sports equipment.
“Furniture bought for the Games was not part of the legacy plan as it was explicitly earmarked for the then Ministry of Sports, Arts and Culture. When Ministry of Sport and Recreation was established in September 2015, de jure and administratively, it became the successor government entity and by extension the intended recipient of furniture purchased for the Games,” said the Permanent Secretary of the ministry Godfrey Chipare in a statement.
The Bulawayo council had expressed its reservations on the continued transferring of furniture to Harare and had since resolved to hand over all the equipment to the Ministry as it felt it was being used to safe keep the equipment by the authorities.
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