A security guard can be seen near their guard house guarding the vandalised and abandoned Zithobeni Stadium in Bronkhorstspruit. Picture: Jacques Nelles
For over two years, the Tshwane Metro has been paying a company for two security guards per shift at the Zithobeni stadium. The problem is that even the guards don’t know what they’re meant to be guarding, as there is almost nothing left of the destroyed facility.
In December 2018, The Citizen reported how the facility, built for R44.3 million in 2017, had been stripped bare, with urinals, toilet bowls, and basins and copper pipe fittings ripped from the walls of all the ablution facilities.
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The stadium, near Bronkhorstspruit, a town about 50km east of Pretoria, will now require much more to get back into a useable state than the R10 million then executive mayor Stevens Mokgalapa said the metro would need to fix the facility.
According to the City of Tshwane, when the facility was completed and the contractor left the site, there were security guards. These were, however, withdrawn due to challenges the metro would not specify.
Security was installed after The Citizen reported on the pillaging, but the vandals have since managed to finish off the little that was left, with almost the entire perimeter fencing around the facility now gone.
The guardhouse, which is supposed to accommodate the security officers has also been smashed, with the guards now using a shack erected along the once lush soccer pitch.
“To be honest, there is nothing left here to watch. Everything is gone. Whatever was left at the stadium was stripped during the hard lock down,” a guard at the stadium, who asked not be named, told The Citizen.
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The guard said most of the stripping happened under the cover of darkness, because there is no electricity and there is no perimeter fencing.
This made it easier for the vandals finish off the stadium, with the guards saying there was nothing they could do.
“All you think of is your safety. We can scream for the vandals to leave but they would soon be back because they know there is nothing we can do,” the guard said.
The stadium has been reduced to a heap of rubble to the point that the Zithobeni Fitness Club has had to use its parking lot for its aerobics exercises.
“This is now a drug den. There are even people sleeping in the stadium’s changing rooms. They make a fire inside to keep warm. This was one of the most beautiful facilities after it was finished. We would come here to marvel at the change rooms wooden fittings. Everything was just perfect. Then everything was gone in few months,” Thabo Vilakazi, 17, said.
The City of Tshwane metro is yet to respond to questions about the broader plan for the stadium and how much the security guards watching what is left of the facility were costing the taxpayers.
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