We must maintain stadiums, facilities

Letters

I REFER to Rebecca Smith’s comment on an “all female crew” that really impressed her in “a male-dominated world” (The National, Dec 5).
First of all, my congratulations to Korea DPR for winning the final and also France for being the runner up for the 2016 Women’s U20 World Cup Soccer.
My heap of praises also goes to the Papua New Guineans who made this World Cup a most memorable occasion for the visiting teams.
Our hospitality is second to none and that is how unique we are.
Thank God for this gift that we have and kudos once again to everyone involved.
I would like to touch something very important that Smith commented on that I wish to elaborate on and that is the issue of maintenance.
This is the single most important factor that many managers lack when it comes to budget – where money is not allocated for maintenance.
We have built infrastructure one after another but one thing that really disturbs me is the lack of maintenance.
Only in PNG we don’t do any maintenance until things literally come to a standstill and when those in charge are asked to comment, we hear the same old rhetoric ‘there is no money’.
Look at the Sir John Guise Stadium after the 1991 SP Games, the synthetic track and generally most of the facilities were never maintained.
Then when it came to the 2015 SP Games millions and millions of kina were spent to redo everything again.
PNG Sports Foundation CEO Peter Tsiamalili should take heed of Smith’s advice and ensure maintenance of all the facilities should be give top priority.

Tumba Biinem
Port Moresby