For Migori, stadia pledges are aplenty but zero action

The government of Migori County plans to construct a new stadium at a cost of Sh350 million in the financial year 2021/2022 and leave the current stadium in its incomplete state.

County director of sports Silas Jonyo said the county government has allocated the monies which will be used to construct another stadium at Lichota ground in Suna West Sub County.

Jonyo said the current stadium in Suna East Sub County which has not been completed despite having been allocated over Sh 50million since 2014 will remain in its current state adding that they will allocate funds to maintain it going forward.

This is the second time the county government is announcing plans of building a new county stadium. In the financial year of 2018/2019, the department of sport indicated that they had allocated Sh 400million for the construction of the stadium at Lichota grounds in Suna West Sub County; however this was not met after Governor Okoth Obado in July 2019 directed the sport department to cancel the plan and concentrate on the current incomplete stadium.

Even as the county government of Migori plans to construct another stadium and leave the current one incomplete, various stakeholders including the county assembly of Migori have recently raised concern over the expenditure of the public funds allocated to the stadium.

On 10th March 2021 speaker of the county assembly Boaz Okoth who accompanied MCAs in the committee of Education, Sports, Gender and Culture said the county assembly was to form a special committee to investigate how the money which has been allocated toward the refurbishment of the stadium from 2014 has been spent.

In his remarks Okoth indicated that the county assembly was not satisfied with how the money allocated towards refurbishment of the stadium had been spent.

His remarks were echoed by the county Education, Sports, Gender and Culture committee chairman Caroline Okere who said that they will ensure that the money allocated for the refurbishment of the stadium is spent wisely.

The report from the Migori county assembly committee for Education, Sports, Gender and Culture released in the month of March 2021 revealed that the county department for sports could not account for Sh 16.4 million out of the Ksh.30 million allocated for the refurbishment of the stadium in the financial year 2019/2020.