There are some individuals circulating false information about the management of football in Northern Province and especially the refurbishment of Kasama stadium.
First things first. Kasama stadium is one of the five projects selected by the FAZ central office in Lusaka to benefit from the $1.5 million FIFA Goal Fund.
The other projects are DK in Chipata( which was recently in floods ), Accommodation Centre in Lusaka, Independence stadium in Solwezi( that has deprived people of North Western Super League games) and Kaole stadium in Mansa( a sorrow sight too).
All these have fallen short and the problem is not the Regional office, but the FAZ secretariat in Lusaka who hired the contractors and the consultant.
So to blame the regional offices is an attempt to spread falsehoods.
Let’s take Kasama for instance, the consultant who was engaged has not supervised the contractor.
And this is the case with all the other projects in the five provinces.
According to information from Football House, the scope for Kasama Stadium was varied after it was found out that the proposed works to be done were not satisfactory to the end users.
The basics of contract and project management demands that the project should make life easier for the targeted grouping.That is the essence of engineering.
In fact, when selecting a contractor at tender stage,it should meet the basics among them;
1.Capacity to execute works through proof of tools, human capital, financial resources.
2.To meet advance works due to security reasons through Line of credit letter and other facilities due to delay in funding.
3.Time, quality and money are the three corner stone of every project.In two months time, a 6 months meant to be project will now enter third year with no quality of works to show off.
- Offer, acceptance ,capacity and consideration.No due diligence may have been done.
So for someone to hip the blame on the FAZ Provincial leadership is not only an act of dishonest, hypocrisy but also a sign of failure and lack of responsibility.
The management of the Kasama project leaves much to be desired.
It shows how unambitious FAZ Secretariat in Lusaka is.
What the FAZ Secretariat in Lusaka has done is to deprive the people of Kasama social, economical and spiritual matters by denying them of hosting independence,Agriculture and commercial show, sports ,church and other related celebrations because of the incompletion of the works that seems to take forever, yet someone comes back and mock them! Sad and shameful.
For the scope of works for the project which has not been availed to the public,it lacked an engineering touch.How do you plan what you cannot execute but you go ahead and demolish the existing structures?
The initial idea was to add a few courses on top of the old already existing wallfence ( where do such engineering practices come from? It is unethical!) , which was rejected as it would cause a danger to the public by weakening the structure feature.
However, against the technical advice ,part of the wallfence was constructed on top of the existing one which resulted in the collapse of this peripheral on the western side of the stadium.
The Regional office proposed a new change room and new wall fence.
As indicated above, this project is centrally managed( Managed from Lusaka ) and the Regional Office has no hand in how the contractor/consultant was appointed.
The delayed completion is partly because the contractor has not received his third payment due to failure to reach 80% of works completed which would have activated that payment.
In essence, FIFA has paid FAZ upto 80% for the stadium but they are not satisfied that the works done on Kasama and other stadiums match how much they have so far spent.
The consultant was a wrong choice and the contractor has no capacity. With these facts, we can’t heap blame on the Regional Office but identify the root cause.
It will be good for those with an issue to report the matter to ACC so that the culprits in Lusaka are brought
ACC please move in and take keen interest..
Where is ACC?inchito yamoneka
Reminds me of Dag Hammarskjold stadium.
That was razed to the ground by FAZ.
FAZ then sat and sat and sat for decades till Levy Mwanawasa was built.
1 stadium may be we can accept poor technical know-how….but 5 stadia…?????
What …was…FAZ…doing….????
As far as I’m concerned the buck stops with FAZ.