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Eddie Chikamhi
Senior Sports Reporter
PARLIAMENTARIANS are furious with the snail pace in the renovations at the National Sports Stadium.
The Warriors have been forced to play their World Cup matches away from home and that pattern looks set to continue during the 2025 AFCON qualifiers.
The Sports and Recreation Commission, who are the custodians of the facility, yesterday gave an update on the renovations, which appear to have stalled for some months.
SRC chairman, Gerald Mlotshwa, and SRC director general Eltah Nengomasha told parliamentarians that work was still continuing on the water reticulation, pitch rehabilitation and bucket seats.
So far, 42 000 bucket seats have been ordered from China by a private partner.
Mlotshwa revealed the bucket seats will arrive in batches, with the first batch expected in the country on August 19.
The installation will continue in phases until the end of the year.
The Warriors are set to play three home games between September and November in Group J of the qualifiers, which includes five-time champions Cameroon, Kenya and Namibia.
The parliamentarians were not amused by lack of progress at the National Sports Stadium.
Member of parliament for Murehwa West Farai Jere, who is also the chairman of the Premier Soccer League as well as owner of CAPS United, was particularly not happy that nothing seems to have moved since the parliamentary portfolio committee members last toured the stadium in May.
“We seem to have a problem here. I think the updates that we are getting is the same thing we got when we toured.
“We saw the trenches that were dug in February. So, the interest of the committee is to find out if there is anything that has happened after that.
“We need to be serious when we are looking at issues of national interest because the biggest sufferers are our people out there.
“I want to find out from the SRC if they are aware that the AFCON draw came out and we are playing teams like Cameroon?
“Are we saying we are going to play Cameroon away from home like we did with Nigeria? These are the big fixtures in Africa and it is unacceptable.”
In response, said their PPP partner was delivering on the bucket seats but the other aspects of the renovations like water reticulation and pitch rehabilitation had stalled due to lack of funding from Treasury.
He said he was also against the idea of the Warriors playing their international matches on foreign soil.
“I certainly don’t want to find ourselves in a situation where we are playing our AFCON qualifiers in another country as has happened with the other games in the World Cup qualification,” said Mlotshwa.
“So, just to be clear, we need to look at the National Sports Stadium as requiring three things. The first one is the bucket seats.
“The second one is waterworks, the reticulation system, and then the third one, which we have not spoken about much, is the pitch itself which requires rehabilitation.
“With respect to the bucket seats, I know for a fact that the amounts required were paid for by a third party. This is the PPP that the Ministry of Finance was referring to.”
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