The Mufulira Central Sports Organisation has bemoaned the poor state of most sports and reaction facilities on the Copperbelt.
Organisation General Secretary Alick Tembo has cited lack of maintenance and vandalism as some factors leading to the deterioration of sports infrastructure.
Tembo, a former ZCCM sports and recreation officer in Mufulira, also bemoaned the tendency by councils to allocate plots on land that hosted football grounds and play parks.
“The sports complexes on the Copperbelt are in a deplorable state. I am referring to the facilities that used to host ZCCM sports festivals and training such as the ones in Mufulira, Nchanga, Nkana, Luanshya and Chililabombwe,” the ex-Mighty Mufulira Wanderers player said.
“The future of sports infrastructure in Zambia leaves much to be desired as the new and old infrastructure are being vandalised. People concerned have also failed to maintain the infrastructure,” Tembo said.
“To make matters worse our local authorities national wide are busy allocating residential plots forgetting to spare areas for sports complexes,” he added.
Tembo wants councils to take an active role in maintaining existing sports infrastructure while establishing modern ones.
“We are also urging our civic leaders to also allocate funds from Constituency Development Fund for the renovation of defunct clubs and sports infrastructure in a bid to support sports development,” he said.
When kambwili was sports minister, he flew to china to persuade CNMC, owners of luanshya mine to help turn Luanshya sports complex into sports university. Alas! he went to talk them into mining the sports complex, we heard on this blog that luanshya sports complex is now an open pit mine. Thanks kambwili and thanks PF
Who maintained the sports infrastructure in the time Alick Tembo s talking about? ZCCM. What model of maintenance was adopted after privatising ZCCM? Clearly none because people from Chiluba to HH were more concerned about how much they could personally benefit from privatisation. They never planned for how Zambia the nation would advance after privatisation. They were too selfish.
When ZCCM collapsed and the mines were sold, Did the MMD government come up with a long term management of the sports facilities with the new owners? What happened to funds raised from Privatization? It’s over 25 yrs and a lot has happened since then. What have we done with billions of dollar loans we obtained from China? Just explain why did we have to spend $42 million on firetenders, $234,000 on Ambulances, $4.5m on a toll gate? Yet today you want to start badmouthing HH as the cause of all these poorly maintained sports facilities , poorly run and collapsing economy.
Why are you not blaming the former finance minister Emmanue Kasonde for borowing $9 billion dollars during his tenure as finance minister? Your hatred of HH is what makes you tribalists blind to the current corruption…
LT hates me so bad
It’s a very sad story, the situation is the same in all Copperbelt towns. It’s these infrastructure that caused the Copperbelt to produce the best sportsmen and women in all disciplines. Zoom Ndhlovu, Dick Mpheneka, Philip Musonda, Lottie Mwale, Spinks Mwila, Charm Shuffle Chiteule, Kalusha Bwalya, Fred Mwila, the list is endless but they all came from these nurseries. Today we produce more gencem stars
We all have different talents, including being blessed in sports and/or athletics, a multi-billion dollar industry today.
Our cheering of sportsmen & women will only make sense if we ensure the continuous development of talent, lots of Kenyans and Ethiopians are taking very good care of their families thru sports, it’s time to wake up Zed…
@Gigbang. Most Zambians want to turn a blind eye to the fact that HH Chiluba Mwanawasa all enriched themselves during privatisation. We have a weak press that fails to investigate and always gives us shallow news. Our prosecutors are weak and police dont know their job so criminals turn to politics where they can easily divert issues into politicking. Zambia should be cleaned up