Mbalula lives up to his club promise
PLANS are in place for the upgrade of Duncan Village Boxing Academy otherwise known as Million Dollar Club.
This was revealed by Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula who has taken upon himself to make sure that the club housed in a dilapidated building gets a facelift.
The club is home to SA featherweight and WBC Youth champion Azinga Fuzile and other boxers including former SA bantamweight title challenger Thabo Siswana.
Fuzile and his trainer Mzamo Njekanye, who owns the club, recently won the prospect and trainer of the year awards respectively at the national boxing awards held in Durban in January.
This achievement was obtained even though they operate in appalling conditions of the building with broken windows and desks which makes it impossible to train in rainy days.
The building also has no electricity with the boxers relying on light coming through the broken windows to engage in sparring sessions held in a makeshift ring of broken desks.
Touched by the condition of the club, Mbalula announced that he would personally take it upon himself to assist in its upgrade.
He made the announcement at the provincial sport, recreation, arts and culture awards held in Port Elizabeth last month.
In the same occasion his provincial counterpart sports MEC Pemmy Majodina also donated R50 000 worth of boxing equipment to the club.
True to word Mbalula sent down officials to conduct a brief study and research on the possibility of starting with the upgrade.
“Our concern was whether the club was housed in a privately owned building because if that was the case we would have struggled to continue with our plan to upgrade it,” said Mbalula.
However with the assistance of Majodina, who engaged the department of education which previously owned the building, the path towards the upgrade is now smooth with Mbalula saying the work could start anytime now.
“We are happy that the building belongs to the government because it makes our job easy now. We can begin with our work as soon as other technicalities have been sorted out.”
Mbalula admitted that he was wary of the club encountering the same fate that befell Sisonke Boxing Club where boxing golden girl Noni Tenge trains.
The minister has made a promise in 2009 to upgrade the club only to encounter stumbling blocks when it was discovered that the building housing the club is privately owned.
The work has since stalled with Tenge even suggesting the club should move to a vacant spot at NU10 Mdantsane so that construction could begin.
However, Sisonke convenor Vido Mtekwana argued that relocating the gymnasium to another place would be time-consuming, preferring to follow the route already in motion about securing Sisonke building.