FURY OVER RUFARO

. . . ANGRY RESIDENTS SLAM CITY COUNCIL

RESIDENTS’ associations said it’s senseless for Harare City Council to hold onto a dilapidated Rufaro Stadium when it can’t renovate the ground.

Council had entered into a memorandum of understanding with Sakunda Holdings, but company pulled out on Tuesday citing lack of political will by the local authority to implement the project.

The entire redesign and renovations were to be wholly funded by Sakunda.

The associations urged the City of Harare and Sakunda must put their differences aside for the development of the city.

Harare Residents Trust (HRT) director, Precious Shumba, said there was no need for council to hold onto the stadium when they have not tried to renovate it.

“Rufaro Stadium has been lying idle and the City of Harare has not demonstrated any capacity to modernise it. But they want to hold onto it like a prized possession which they do not mind destroying in the name of waiting for the right investors,” he said.

“It is most unfortunate that there seems to be a bitter relationship between Sakunda Holdings and the mayor of Harare, who seems to mock everything related to Sakunda Holdings.”

Shumba said council and Sakunda should resolve their issues and move with speed to implement the project.

“The project should go on for the benefit of the sports fraternity in the country.

“Rufaro Stadium remains one of the most iconic stadiums we have and it should be made a world class sporting facility which should be readily available to football teams,” he said.

Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA) programmes manager, Reuben Akili, urged the City of Harare to re-engage Sakunda for the benefit of the community.

“In our view, the whole process of the agreement needs to be done with transparency. The two institutions involved should stop pointing fingers at each other,” he said.

“The moment these issues are discussed through statements, it becomes problematic. We believe the renovations should go on for the benefit of Harare residents.”

Akili said it was unfair that the renovations were stopped because of selfish reasons.

Zimbabwe National Organisation of Associations and Residents Trust head, Shepherd Chikomba, said all stakeholders should set their differences aside for the sake of community development.

“The other problem that we face as residents is lack of transparency, especially on the issuing of tenders” he said.

“This ends up giving room for other stakeholders to refuse cooperation as they will question the legitimacy of the tender, but true leaders must solve problems amicably, focus on development and put personal interests aside.”

Harare mayor, Jacob Mafume said the MOU was clear that if there are issues, they write to each other and give each other seven days to deal with those issues.

He said part of the MOU clause specifically prohibited them from disclosing such matters in public without the consent of the other part.

“And the designs which we have been seeing on social media, I had not seen them before.

“We thought they were going to come to us and give us a presentation of the things they have put and the mechanics of what needs to be done and how they were going to do it.

“Council has been on the wrong side of many deals and we have resolved to carefully look at every deal and get the necessary expertise externally to assist us to negotiate complex commercial transactions,” Mafume said.*