More Stadium woes: World Cup 2010

As if bureaucrats could not slow down the building process enough, now it seems there are fears that the stadiums (Stadia?) might not be ready on time, due to skills and material shortages. South Africa has been facing shortages of cement and other materials for some time now due to the incredible amount of of building and apparent monopolization of the cement industry. The stadium building project has been classified a “high risk” project in light of the lack of resources.

Since the schedule has been delayed so much by endless council meetings, lobby groups and nail clipping, it looks as though we will have to import specialists and other skilled workers to complete the project on time. This then throws the budget out and the council meetings start up again. Woohoo

On the funding side Investec has bailed the city out with R185M, which may well be exceeded in an open bid process. Mayor Helen Zille said that stadiums were not Investec’s business, but the group understood the implications of 2010 being a failure, and wanted to make sure it did not happen.

“Last week this time, we thought we would not be able to go ahead with this project,” Zille told reporters.

“It was clear if we did not find an alternative source of funding we would have to can the project,” she said.

Those are scary words to a city of soccer lovers and the 120 000 that will employed in its construction.

I’ll get down there with a trowel and plumb line if they need me!