BEHIND THE NEWS | State of sports facilities enough to make you weep

Every day when I wake up and make my way to work, I always imagine what the dire state of the Eastern Cape’s sporting infrastructure especially in townships and villages will be in 50 years, let alone in two decades.

This scary view is not only held by me as a sports journalist, but is also a concern for the public in the province, for whom it is a talking point in their get-togethers in restaurants and bars and on social media.

What is heartbreaking, is the suggestion from some of them that the state of sports infrastructure was better more than 30 years ago before the dawn of democracy.

Hearing those cries with my colleague, Bomikazi Mdiya, during our six-month investigation in 2023 of the dilapidated state of swimming pools and stadiums in the Eastern Cape, left us in despair because democracy was supposed to make things better.

We still live in an Eastern Cape which has two different sporting worlds, one where the underprivileged suffer and the other where  the privileged shine. 

As a sports reporter,  I’m a firm believer that this should not be the case. 

Our investigation showed that the state of the province’s swimming pools had deteriorated sharply due to a lack of maintenance.

Pools in Komga, Mthatha, Komani, Mdantsane and Butterworth are among those that are no longer usable.

In Butterworth, a brand new R21m pool was never opened or filled with water.

Some of the pools were overgrown and vandals had had a field day.

Residents in those towns all said much the same when asked why their pools had been closed.

“The pools were just closed, and we do not know why.”

I grew up in NU2 Mdantsane and I know those sentiments well from my parents, grandparents and close neighbours.

I am 24 years old and the Mdantsane NU2 pool was last operational more than 30 years ago.

I have never seen the clear blue water my folks recall in their heyday.

The only memories I have are of a nine-year-old me and friends sneaking through the fences at the facility after heavy rains to swim because that was the only time in the year it would be filled up.

We would get rashes and infections from the dirty water, but we would go back there time and again because it was the closest to a swimming pool that we had. 

Our only other option entailed a 30km walk or drive to the Joan Harrison pool in town, which many could not afford. 

Even today, we still bear the pain as residents of the area as the  deadlines for its reopening have shifted constantly despite millions of rand spent on the project by the municipality.

Children in our area still swim in dams and rivers unsupervised, the same as my friends and I did in our childhood.

The National Sea Rescue Institute said this year that the Eastern Cape was among the leading provinces in terms of  recorded drownings.

Again this year, the Eastern Cape did not have a representative in the SA Swimming team at the Olympics in France.

Those stats do not do the Eastern Cape governmentproud.

During our investigation, the national department of sport, arts and  culture revealed that 193 municipalities throughout the country had been allocated nearly R1.9bn since 2016/2017 for the upkeep of their stadiums and facilities.

You would not know it from the snaps our photographer, Theo Jeptha, returned with.

For example, the Ngcobo stadium project which cost R12.9m is filled with grass now.

Mismanagement of funds, poor contract management and inadequate technical support were highlighted in a report by the department as the challenges that have to be overcome.

However, these issues have been around for decades. Why are there no steps in place to address them?

There have been a number of news articles over the years about money being given to stadiums for repairs and the money and contractor disappearing before the job even begins.

Or the work being done so badly that it may as well not have been done at all. 

Yet it seems all that ever happens is, occasionally, an investigation, followed by yet more reports. 

Seldom do we hear of contractors being blacklisted, let alone prosecuted and jailed, or municipal managers being fired over the stadiums and swimming pools that go to seed on their watch. 

Who is in charge of managing these facilities? Why does the buck not stop with them?

The Eastern Cape government can’t keep letting these cases slip under its nose without consequences.

It’s high time it wakes up and does something to stop the rot or the province will be in a far worse situation in 50 years’ time.

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