AfricaPress-Tanzania: THE government said they are in the final stages to establish key sport disciplines which will be given full support to employ more Tanzanian youths and market the country globally.
This was disclosed recently by the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry for Information, Culture, Arts and Sports Hassan Abbasi who insisted that time has come to have priority sport events.
“As government, it is impossible to help all sports disciplines available in the country that is why we need to select few of them which will be capable to offer employment to many people and at the sametimes, fly high the national colours outside the country.
“The procedures have been completed at the ministry level such that we are just waiting to channel them to stakeholders to hear their views on which activities they think should be given more priority,” Abbasi said.
About the biggest national stadium set to be constructed in the capital city Dodoma, Abbasi said everything is progressing well and soon, the works will begin.
“It will be a modern complex facility which will be fitted with hostels and hotels for teams to camp easily without difficulties.
“Earlier, the government of Morocco showed interest to help us in building the stadium but due to some delays, the project will be implemented using our own money as already recommended by president John Magufuli,” he said.
He added that until now, the state has already put aside a good amount of money ready to be invested into the construction works once they begin.
“We have therefore migrated from the project which was to be accomplished by donated money to the one which will be finalised by our own funds and it will be the biggest in the country,” Abbasi narrated.
Asked why the government saw it not necessary to build several small stadiums in different regions across the country rather than just one big stadium in one place, Abbasi said the upcoming stadium should be ready to host even world cup games if given a chance to.
“We want to construct a stadium with modern standards to host any team from anywhere.
At the National Stadium in Dar es Salaam, we had a world cup thinking before building that venue that is why even Brazil came to play there,” he said.
