Probe sorry state of sports infrastructure

The dilapidated state of stadia in the counties has been laid bare. County governments are annually allocated millions of shillings to upgrade the facilities, but there’s hardly anything to show for it.

By entrenching devolution in the Constitution, it had been hoped that resources to these counties would efficiently be deployed to provide the much-needed sports infrastructure at the grassroots.

So often, governors flanked by respective Sports executives have hogged headlines launching stadia projects. Sadly, years later with millions of shillings sunk, disintegrating brick and mortar is all these county officials have to show.

In the capital, for instance, Nairobi’s historic City Stadium and Woodley are an eyesore yet successive county governments have purported to allocate funds for their refurbishment. Moi Stadium in Kisumu, Mombasa County Stadium, and Kenyatta Stadium in Kitale have either been turned into dumpsites or market places.

Some governors have even overlooked existing infrastructure and initiated some from scratch, which again have met the same fate as the decayed old stadia.

It is discouraging that sports has borne the brunt of lip service by the national and county governments. It is sad that the decaying stadia have not pricked the conscience of the country’s leaders.

It is time that an audit be carried out on all the funds county governments have been allocating to sports. With the renewed vigour with which the Judiciary, the DCI, EACC and the ODPP have fought corruption, Sports departments are fertile grounds of racketeers, whose days should be numbered.