NAN-S-12
Funds
Jos, Jan. 22, 2018 (NAN) Plateau United Football Club may not begin their campaign in the 2018 CAF Champions League on home ground in Jos in February, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports.
This is because hopes of completing the Zaria Road Stadium, which is the approved home ground, appear to be fading fast as non-release of funds have been hampering the stadium’s completion.
Plateau United had played their home matches at the Rwang Pam Stadium on their way to winning the 2016/2017 Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) title.
That success had earned them the ticket to play in the 2018 CAF Champions League.
However, the competition’s organisers, the Confederation of African Football (CAF), has not approved usage of the Rwang Pam Stadium for the competition.
But, the Zaria Road Stadium, which has since the late 80s been under construction and abandoned by successive administrations in Plateau, fits the bill for such international matches if completed.
However, the hopes which were raised by the interest earlier shown in the stadium’s completion by the Simon Lalong administration in the state now seem to getting dashed.
This is because non-release of funds seems to have put the project’s completion on hold.
BBC Nigeria Limited, the contractor handling the multi-billion Naira Zaria Road Stadium, seems frustrated and perplexed as the failure to get funds released has hampered the job.
A company representative told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that the only option left to them now was to beg the Plateau State Government for funds.
He said this would even help to pay for the roof ordered from Germany last December, so that it could be put into some use very soon.
“My image is at stake before the German company we ordered the stadium’s roof from,’’ Plaimen Iliave, the company’s Managing Director, said.
“I am just pleading with Gov. Simon Lalong to keep to his words and release the funds he pledged to give us to import the roof for the VIP area of the uncompleted stadium.
“The Germans are not happy with us for placing an order which we have not even gone to pay for in spite of the short time we placed that order.
“If the state government is not ready to release the N1.4 billion it promised us for the little work we are supposed to do for Plateau United’s convenience in executing its CAF Champions League matches, let it give us the N400 million meant for the roof’’.
Iliave decried the attitude of the Plateau government towards the stadium’s completion since his company commenced work on it in 2010.
He said the last money his company got from the government was N160 million last July for the repair and maintenance of the stadium’s pitch and construction of the parking lot.
Iliave said since then it has been one assurance or the other.
“The governor visited the stadium last Dec. 4 with an entourage of over 60 government functionaries, including the state APC Chairman, Letep Dabang, and he ordered me to go to Germany and speak to the firm that manufactures stadium roofs to produce the one for the VIP Area.
“I can’t believe that up till this moment, government is yet to say anything about it. They have even refused to pick our phone calls,’’ he claimed.
“All our expatriates have been asked to go back to Bulgaria, our home country, because there is no money to pay them, especially now that no work is going on at the stadium,’’ he said.
In a reaction, the state’s Sports Commissioner, Dalandi Mann, described the situation as “very unfortunate’’ but pledged to work on the release of the funds to the contractor as agreed upon.
“Agreed there is a snag somewhere, but that does not mean that we are not concerned or bothered over the non-completion of the stadium.
“In fact, we had wanted the stadium completed in our first year in office, considering its importance to us, but for the lack of funds.
“We have no option but to keep looking for means to achieve that at all cost,’’ the commissioner stated.
Mann, while insisting that the failure to pick phone calls made by Iliave was not deliberate, expressed regrets about the strained relationship between the contractor and the German firm.
“The Plateau Government will do all it can to remedy the situation, particularly the image of our contractor before the Germans, as well as making sure Plateau United play all their matches in the CAF competition in the stadium,’’ he pledged.(NAN)
TYC/OLAL
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(Edited by Olawale Alabi)