The Sunday News
Ngqwele Dube, Sports Correspondent
THE Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Youth, Sports, Arts and Recreation on Wednesday berated Bulawayo mayor, Solomon Mguni and town clerk, Christopher Dube for failing to attend a tour of Barbourfields Stadium by the body.
The committee’s chairman Mathias Tongofa said they will be summoning the two to Harare as this is the second time that they have ignored invitations to discuss stadia issues with the committee.
He said Mguni and Dube seemed to be looking down upon the work of the committee.
“We had questions for the town clerk and the mayor but I wonder why they are not here. Earlier this year, we invited them to come to Harare but they did not pitch while officials from other local authorities presented themselves. We then decided we are going to make it easy for them and meet them in Bulawayo but they have snubbed us again.
“We are summoning them to come to Harare without fail. I hope they are not eyeing the T and S allowances that come with travelling,” said Tongofa during the tour at Barbourfields.
Bulawayo City Council community services officer, Nkosiyavuma Sivela and project manager, Thembinkosi Ncube led several council officials in presenting the refurbishments that have been made to the stadium.
Mguni said there could have been miscommunication on his presence as he believed BCC officials they sent to attend the tour had full capacity to address any concerns the committee could have raised.
“We are always willing to engage Parliament and would never snub them. I guess there was no clarity in the invitation that they wanted policy makers present, we instead sent administrative staff who are well versed with the technical issues related to the stadium renovation,” he said.
The committee is on a countrywide tour of stadiums as they assess the state of infrastructure following a move by the Confederation of African Football to order Zimbabwe’s national teams to play outside country as local stadia do not meet the minimum standards.
The committee raised concern over the variance in the cost of installing flood lights for Barbourfields and Mandava.
It was revealed that at Mandava, the cost of revamping the floodlights was put at US$75 000 while for BF, a BCC official put the figure at 10 times that amount.
The committee questioned the huge difference when both stadiums were aiming at meeting the same standard.
They urged BBC to liaise with those working on Mandava whether they can use the option being used at that stadium in order to lower the costs.
