Featured: Gunjur Mini Stadium “A Failed Project”?
Amid the farce, the delayed schedule and debacle for the $10 million Gunjur Mini Stadium Project, the Gambia Football Federation “GFF” is taking the people of Gunjur for granted.
Monday 28th of February 2022, GFF's first vice president Mr Bakary Jammeh met with the people of Gunjur Community. The meeting was premised on the barrage of complains about the stunted progress of the Gunjur mini stadium project.
Despite my reservations, I welcomed the chink of reaction from Mr Jammeh. Nonetheless, his informal and lack of preparation at the meeting, exposes despondingly at the cold approach of failures of GFF.
After three years of failure, one will expect GFF representative to proffer tangible solutions on the table for the successful implementation of the Gunjur mini stadium. Alas, Mr Jammeh gave lackluster excuses for the stalled project.
The so-called transition he mentioned - taking the project from one project consultant and to give it to another consultant balderdash, creates more questions than provided answers.
With all due respect, Mr first vice president, it is my contention that, you went to meet the people of Gunjur, bereft of answers, lack of organisation and malnourished of details.
This unearthed how serious GFF is to address the tapestry of complications responsible for the delay of the Gunjur mini stadium project.
Hanging over this project is the country's massive corruption crisis. In line with this trend in the country, Gunjur’s high profile troubled project of $10 million is becoming another fiasco.
Therefore, meeting with the people of Gunjur is just a face-showing facade. Mr Jammeh knows that this project is beset by corruption, lack of seriousness and there is growing doubts that it will ever finish. It is a mess and already a crushing blow to the credibility of GFF.
The old Gunjur football ground was decimated, the would be mini stadium project stalled and the victims being the youth of Gunjur.
Consequently, our local league ‘Nawettan’ is disrupted. Our Gunjur town team - the newly crowned champions of Kombo South, cannot host matches on our home ground for another who knows. In the same vein, the financial costs to Gunjur sports committee’s meagre resources mostly from gate fees is astronomical.
The mini stadium project on Gunjur is dealt with a thunderous blow because of corruption, ineptitude, lies, and indecision by incompetence institution that lost the trust of the people of Gunjur.
The Gambian institutions of recent are not only engulfed in embarrassing corruption spree, but majority of them grow up on a diet of corruption. As a result, they are rendered useless at better getting anything done on time without corruption. These have catastrophic trickling effects on the quality of life of our people.
I can only take GFF’s first vice president’s unconvincing words at face value. It remains my assertion that the Gunjur mini stadium project is a sad joke with no chance of progress.
However, I stand to be proven wrong.