OF late there have been protests from community members from different communities of Limpopo and all indications revolve around service deliveries ranging from provision of constant clean water and the need to rehabilitate roads amongst key issues affecting people. With this said there is one aspect which our leaders either take for granted and assume it is not as important as the aforementioned services but has always been an excuse for the emergence of the drug abuse by especially young people who are legible to vote. One has to make reference to the report compiled by the Human Research Council in conjunction with LoveLife in 2016 where they looked at sport as an intervention for substance abuse reduction amongst adolescents and young adults.
The issue of sports facilities ranging from football fields and other such recreational facilities have been neglected and one gets a sense the powers that be either don’t care or bluntly put are incompetent to deal with such. It is an uncontested fact that football is the number one sport in South Africa but the construction, upgrade and maintenance of these facilities always play second fiddle to other services provided by a vast of local municipalities. I will focus on facilities that I have personally seen. The state of the Malamulele stadium makes for a sorry sight something the Collins Chabane Local Municipality must hang their heads in shame. The Makwarela stadium which falls under the Thulamela Local Municipality is in a deplorable state and yet residents and taxpayers are expected to see this anomaly as acceptable. And if you thought the two afore mentioned stadiums bad you need not look further than the disgraceful and shocking state of the Lesley Manyathela stadium –I hope Lesley’s mother will pardon me for this because she is on record to say she is ashamed to have the stadium being associated with her son’s name. The stadium looks like an aftermath of high calibre artillery skirmish.
All the while we also have the Provincial Portfolio Committee responsible for Sports that plays an oversight role on some of these issues yet their silence suggests they are complicit in this mumbo jumbo type of leadership or they are simply testing the patience of the voting public. It is important to note that the outcome of the slated local government elections will hinge on some of these matters that have a direct impact on residents.
