Sport facilities are in ruin
Mpumalanga News visited a local sports centre which was occupying young people back in the day and found that some of the facilities were not in a good state.
Sport plays an important role when it comes to occupying youth so that they are not tempted to become involve in criminal activities. It is another story in the Umjindi Local Municipality as many sporting codes don’t survive.
It’s believed that youth becomes discouraged because they do not receive enough support from the council when it comes to using funds to promote local talent. This has resulted in some of the facilities being vandalised and others are not maintained.
Mpumalanga News visited a local sports centre which was occupying young people back in the day and found that some of the facilities were not in a good state. Toilets were damaged and some posts were not in a good condition.
Speaking to this publication, a concerned community member and sportsman, who wanted to remain anonymous said, “Sports was not taken seriously in our town in such manner that we didn’t have the annual mayoral cup games as in other municipalities. As a result, some of the youngsters got discouraged. Our leaders need to stand up and take sports very seriously. These days young people indulge in alcohol because they are bored.
Those who are active in soccer are those who are still at primary level and they are not receiving enough support in terms of funding. The question is, what is the municipality doing with the money if they are failing to support local talent in the various sporting codes? There are people in this town who are good in tennis, netball and basketball, but that talent is just lying dormant.
Efforts to get hold of the spokesman of the municipality, Samuel Jele to see what role it is playing in terms of promoting sports, proved fruitless.
