Rirungu Stadium: Things are different on the ground
By People Team, November 12, 2019By Joseph Kingori and Amos Abuga
Nyeri Town Member of Parliament Ngunjiri Wambugu has reignited the stalled stadia topic after visiting Ruringu Stadium at the weekend just to realise that things were actually “different on the ground” despite the fact that the Ministry of Sports had already splashed Sh106 million on its renovation.
A spot check by People Sport also confirmed there was no activity taking place in the stadium, several months after the official ground breaking took place, with a section of the stadium turned into a grazing ground. This comes on the backdrop of a report received by the Parliamentary Committee on Sports about 10 days ago where members of the committee wanted to know the progress of the nine stadia that had millions of shillings allocated for their up lifting.
According to the report prepared by Sports Kenya, Ruringu which they said had already received Sh64 million, was 30 per cent complete, but a physical check revealed that only a wall had been erected by the County Government of Nyeri on one side of the stadium and nothing more had been done on the facility that was initially expected to be hosting local league matches.
“I toured Ruringu Stadium. I wanted to see where the Sh106 million which is indicated as work done in the stadium so far, has gone. The Sh106 million translates to the Sh20m that was paid at inception of the contract, Sh44 million that has been paid via certificates and Sh 42m that’s pending worth of unpaid certificates,” said the legislature on his Facebook page.
He added: “Sh 106 million is also 33 percent of the Sh 320m needed to build our stadium. This means that on the ground we should see close to one third worth of work required. But in the literal sense, the ground is totally different.”
Ngunjiri said there is absolutely nothing to see on the ground and confirmed that the incomplete perimeter wall had been constructed by the County Government.
“This is unacceptable. In coming days I will want to understand who was paid this money, and what they say they did with it. I also want to know why the stadium has stalled despite being launched by President Uhuru Kenyatta over three years ago,” he said.