AfricaPress-Tanzania: AFTER failing to clear the outdoor sports court floor tiles for seven years, the Tanzania Amateur Volleyball Association (TAVA) has now breathed a sigh of relief after finally managing to secure the consignment.
TAVA Secretary General Alfred Selengia confirmed to the ‘africa-press’ yesterday that Federation of International de Volleyball (FIVB) donated an outdoor sports court floor tiles that arrived in the country way back in 2014 but they failed to clear the consignment.
Selengia said financial constrain prevented TAVA to clear the tiles on time, while the storage charges went on to shoot to USD 22,000 to make it even worse.
He said that thanks to Minister for Information, Culture, Arts and Sports Harrison Mwakyembe, who he said, has played a big part for them to recover the consignment after requesting Azam to provide exemption for the storage charges.
“When we took charge of office over two years ago, among the priorities we set was to make sure we manage to recover the court floor tiles so that it can be used for our development programmes,” he said.
“I want to thank Minister Mwakyembe and the National Sports Council (NSC), first for accepting our request and second for their tireless work that saw discussion with Azam paid off and the consignment was released for free of charge this year after long wait. “The ministry also did a wonderful job to ensure we also get other tax reliefs and now, we already secured the court tiles that have been kept at National Stadium waiting process to lay them,” he added.
Selengia said that they are grateful that the ministry has also given them piece of land to put the court at Uhuru Stadium in Dar es Salaam.
“TAVA in collaboration with NSC have already started the process to build concrete base that the floor tiles will be laid after,” he said.
