The Ministry of Sport, Youth and National Service (MSYNS) has called on public and private enterprises to donate money for the rehabilitation of the Independence Stadium in Olympia, Windhoek.
Speaking during a breakfast stakeholder engagement here yesterday, MSYNS Executive Director Audrin Mathe said the stadium that was built in the late 1950s was never fit to host any international events because of various reasons.
He said the renovation of the stadium is not only to cater for the bidding of the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) tournament which Namibia and Botswana have expressed interest in, but for the national football team, the Brave Warriors who are currently using South Africa as their home ground.
“The stadium has never had individual seats (bucket seats), the VIP parking area is deemed unable to cater for International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) standards and the VIP area is too small to accommodate the requisite number of delegates for international matches,” Mathe explained amongst other things.
He further added that FIFA says the media room is small for international games, while the pitch entry and exit point for the players are currently standing at 2.2 metres high, while the Confederation of African Football requires it to be 4.4 metres high.
The pitch itself needs to be upgraded while the spectator parking does not meet the ratio of cars-to-stadium capacity.
Mathe said while the government had made N.dollars 50 million available, that was half the required N.dollars 98 million for these upgrades.
The Independence Stadium currently has a 25 000-sitting capacity, and if the AFCON bid is successful, it would need to be upgraded to 45 000.
(NAMPA)
KM/PS/EK
2 (KINSHASA, 17 JUN, AFP) – A DR Congo soldier was killed and two Rwandan policemen were wounded yesterday in an exchange of fire on their country’s tense border that also left civilians injured, security sources said.
The incident happened at a frontier post in the city of Goma in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, hiking tensions between two countries with a decades-long history of fraught ties.
Observers from a multinational organisation called the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) briefly conferred with Congolese and Rwandan officials at the border.
Congolese police held back around a hundred demonstrators who tried to head to the border post, chanting slogans against Rwandan President Paul Kagame.
AFP
3 (DAR ES SALAAM, 17 JUN, AFP) – Tanzania has charged 20 Maasai protesters over the killing of a policeman during a demonstration against the government’s decision to cordon off land for wildlife protection, according to a charge sheet seen by AFP yesterday.
The clashes erupted last weekend in Loliondo in Ngorongoro district, where Maasai herders protested against the government’s push to reserve 1 500 square kilometres of land to create a wildlife protection area.
One officer was killed and several protesters were injured during the demonstrations, sparking anger among the Maasai who have accused the government of trying to force them off their land in order to organise safaris and hunting expeditions.
The government has rejected these accusations, claiming that it wants to protect the area from human activity.
Police have now charged 20 of the protesters in connection with the policeman’s killing, according to a charge sheet signed on Thursday, with the case filed at the resident magistrate court in Arusha.
Tanzania has historically allowed indigenous communities such as the Maasai to live within some national parks, including the Ngorongoro conservation area, a UNESCO World Heritage site, but they now face the threat of eviction, as the authorities contend that their growing population is encroaching on wildlife habitat.
AFP
4 (TUNIS, 17 JUN, AFP) – A Tunisian military court upheld a one-year prison sentence yesterday against a prominent critic of President Kais Saied convicted of ‘attacking the dignity of the army’, his lawyer told AFP.
The Tunis Military Court of Appeal also banned Seifeddine Makhlouf, head of Islamist nationalist party Al-Karama, from working as a lawyer for five years, lawyer Anouar Ouled Ali said.
Makhlouf had been arrested in September over a dispute with military judges and handed a year-long suspended prison sentence in February, after losing his parliamentary immunity following a power grab by Saied last year.
Yesterday, a judge ordered him to serve the jail time, but his lawyer said he would appeal.
Makhlouf, who remains at large, is also appealing a five-month prison sentence after being found guilty of insulting police during a standoff at Tunis airport in March 2021.
Source: The Namibian Press Agency
