Explain K20 plan for new stadiums

 I WRITE to express my view regarding the K20 million announced by the Sports and Tourism Minister Justin Tkatchenko to build new stadiums to host the Women’s FIFA world Cup in November this year.

Firstly, Tkatchenko needs to explain to the people what happened to the incomplete stadiums like the Sir Hubert Murray stadium, Sir John Guise and the Bisini Parks etch that were hanging on scaffolds. 

He was the sports minister when the government announced more than a billion kina for sports facilities in Port Moresby in preparation for the 2015 Pacific Games. 

While others were completed, there were few still pending that needed explanation to the tax payers.

Secondly, without any explanation on the pending 2015 projects of sports facilities on how this billion plus kina has been spent and why these projects hanging on scaffolds, the so called action minister has announced another K20 million still on sports facilities, this time for hosting the FIFA women’s challenge. 

A voxpop run by this paper last Friday showed that approximately 99 per cent of the respondents say that the money be invested to other areas of vital importance and into the rural areas than spending on sports infrastructure.

Thirdly, the question for the minister is that when he does not have a good explanation on the pending and incomplete projects running to billions of kina for the 2015 Pacific Games and now when people are doubting his announcement of K20 million for sports stadiums, will he continue to ignore the people and go ahead with his lavish plan?

Now the national government and the minster and his ministry should know that PNG is not Australia or England or any other developed nations where billions of dollars or pounds can be poured into recreational and leisure events.

May be because the minister is a naturalized citizen, he thinks that’s what we should be doing to improve people’s lives but these facilities will benefit a handful of people and teams, not the entire seven million people.

Tkatchenko should know that more than 85 per cent of the population lives in the rural areas and there lacks – improved health facilities, short of drugs, improved school facilities, better market and road infrastructure to transport and sell their produce and the list goes on and their daily lives are almost one of a struggling while the government lavishly spends millions, even billions on things that matters less to the whole people. 

Therefore the national government and the sports ministry with Tkatchenko must reverse their decision and look at ways in which the K20 million can be spent in important areas of service delivery that will have impact on the general population instead of few sports women and men.

That money can help achieve a lot of better things in rural areas then just spending here in the city on sports facilities that will benefit less people.

City Watchdog, Via email