By Vincent Gunde
Village headman Ziyenera of Ntchisi, has expressed his deep concern over the long awaited project – completion of Ntchisi stadium observing that the council is losing the much needed revenue collections for service delivery in the district.
The village chief has lamented that the whole Ntchisi district has no reliable stadium yet talent identification for players is a must and coming at the district headquarters, the stadium is the same as they have in their respective areas.
A visit to the stadium by journalist in a media advocacy tour with support from the Malawi Human Rights Resource Center (MHRRC) under its project – Enhanced Citizen Participation in Local Governance and Development Processes, found players doing warm up activities with the ground bare and dusty.
Village headman Ziyenera said some years back, well wishers did their part by levelling the ground to make it a playing ground, then the DPP led government of President Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika built a brick wall fence around the stadium.
The chief said in what many people thought that the stadium would come to a completion looking at the fence erected, the project stopped from 2018 till this day observing that the MCP led government of President Dr. Lazarus Chakwera did nothing to the stadium for it to be completed.
He has appealed to Members of Parliament and Councilors of the district to consider a certain amount from the MK5 billion Constituency Development Fund (CDF) to go towards completion of the stadium.
” If completed, the stadium will attract the youth teams from all the constituencies to be coming at the district headquarters for games, thereby enhancing talent identification in our district,” said Village headman Ziyenera.
On his part, Ntchisi District Social Accountability Committee ( DSAC) Chairperson Ackim Chiwaula, said recently Member of Parliament for Ntchisi Central East constituency Arnold Kadzanja did a commendable job inviting FCB Bullets to play Ntchisi select at Ntchisi stadium.
Chiwaula said Bullets officials were not satisfied with the ground for safety of players and the game was switched to Mponela ground saying this alone was painful to all Ntchisi district sports lovers and revenue was lost for the council.
” Ntchisi select team lost to bullets by five goals to one, had it been that the match was played at Ntchisi stadium, we could have given Bullets a good game,” lamented Chiwaula.
He said the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) has a component of sports speaking for itself that a share from each constituency towards the stadium, will make the stadium to improve by steps forward to its completion.
However, Chiwaula expressed his deep concern over some elected officials who do not want to take a little money from their CDF allocation to go to the stadium completion describing this development as very retrogressive.
And when contacted, Ntchisi District Council’s Public Relations Officer James Mwale, said Ntchisi stadium is still a project idea for the council saying its development future can be clearly determined after full consultations between respective stakeholders through respective channels e.g full Council meetings.
The media advocacy tour for journalists to Ntchisi was organized by the Malawi Human Rights Resource Center (MHRRC) with support from DCA NCA Country Programme – Malawi.
