24 Jun 2015

Government will use over P1 million to undertake major maintenance at the Maun Sports Complex.

Botswana National Sports Council (BNSC) development officer, Odirile Sibanda, said this in response to comments from media practitioners regarding the bad state of the stadium.

He said the maintenance was ongoing while streets lights, renovations of dressing rooms, ablution blocks had been completed. He said only maintenance of the turf would be left due to financial constraints.

Sibanda assured the media that before the beginning of the next season the stadium would be in a better position. “A lot of things have changed at the stadium and I could assure you that as the season starts, our stadium would be of high standard,” he added.

He noted that last year, due to financial constraints, renovation of the stadium was delayed, adding that the plan was to renovate the facility towards the end of the year.

Journalists also enquired about issues of security, cleanliness, non-functioning streetlights and shortage of dressing rooms.

They said Sankoyo Bush Bucks had become the second Premier League team with a huge number of supporters after Township Rollers hence they expect the stadium to be of high class.

They suggested that since the facility has many gates, they should all be used during encounters to reduce congestion at the main entrance.

For his part, Sankoyo Bush Bucks public relation officer, Thato Molosi noted that the bad state of the stadium had been an issue of concern to the team management.

He said they once made some recommendations to BNSC to act on because they were not happy with a lot of things at the stadium. He said the council took time to respond to their request and the development officer at the facility used his discretion to attend to minor maintenance.

Molosi said they once complained about the nets and requested that new nets be purchased. He appreciated the good work done by the officer noting that he always engage casual labourers to clean the pitch before the games.

Regarding sale of tickets, Molosi said the team came up with control measures to standardise the sales during encounters. He said no tickets would be sold at the entrance gates as it was the norm, adding that they had requested for the issuance of tickets on time prior to the games.

Molosi noted that the team management would embark on an education drive to sensitise the community about the new arrangement noting that ticket sales had been a challenge to his team as some went missing. He emphasised that robust advertising would be done to attract fans.

In the past, reports of embezzlement of funds were rife within the team and some supporters took up the matter with the police as no one accounted for the missing booklets. Ends