The Speaker of Parliament, Anita Among, has set up a team to assess the progress of the renovation of Namboole stadium. This move comes after Members of Parliament expressed concerns about the delay in the renovation, which they claimed had caused government financial loss.
The five-man team will be led by the Leader of the Opposition, Hon. Mathias Mpuuga and is comprised of Hon. Maurice Kibalya, Hon. Paul Omara, and Hon. Christine Kaaya. The team will visit Namboole Stadium to establish whether the Shs97 billion appropriated by Parliament for the renovation has been well utilised.
Among’s directive follows complaints from MPs on what they termed as wasteful expenditure when Uganda Cranes travelled to Egypt to play its home game against Tanzania. Such expenditure was unnecessary, and Among argued that funds spent to transport and maintain the Cranes in Egypt could have been put to better use.
Legislators said besides Nambole, the government had budgeted for the renovation of several other stadia, but implementation has dragged. For instance, the renovation of the stadium in Gulu City was meant to commence three years ago, but no work has been done.
Berdege-Layibi Division MP, hon. Martin Mapenduzi said the renovation of the stadium in Gulu City was meant to commence three years ago but no works have been done.
“It would be fair for government to tell the people of Gulu what happened to the plan to renovate the stadium, because even a consultant had been hired, the designs were drawn but we do not know what happened to the designs,” Mapenduzi said.
Hon. Peter Ogwang, the State Minister for Sports, said Namboole Stadium was at the moment ineligible to host the Confederation African Football (CAF) games, a reason the Uganda Cranes had to travel to Egypt. He said he was closely following up the UPDF engineering brigade to ensure renovation at Namboole is complete by June 2023.
“As of now, our focus is to have the stadium ready for our next game which is scheduled on 12 June 2023. Much of the work remaining is on fitting; fitting chairs for example does not take a month. We want the stadium ready by 01 June to satisfy all CAF requirements,” said Ogwang.
SOURCE: PARLIAMENT
