A prominent miner from Kwekwe who wanted to construct a state-of-the-art soccer stadium and a sports club is a frustrated man and has put on ice bankrolling a Division One bound team he founded.
Shepherd Chahwanda told Zwnews that his plans to convert land allocated to him for mining purposes into a stadium has been inexplicably delayed by the municipality which is ‘taking ages’ to effect the conversion.
Chahwanda said the council continues to dither on okaying the conversion of his mining portion of land into a stadium as he has been kept on hold for over a year now.
He had intended to use the stadium as homeground for his Division One soccer side, Hardrock FC. Chahwanda, who is also known as Magodora in local circles, said he also wanted to construct a sports club at the site.
As a result, he has ‘temporarily’ shelved bankrolling Hardrock FC for a year until he gets the license to construct own stadium.
“I have been trying to convince the authorities and have actually followed procedures but all this has been in vain”, Chahwanda told this publication.
“We had actually hoped that by the end of last year, we could have been putting final touches to the stadium but the processes are taking ages and we decided to even stop playing Division One football until we get the greenlight to construct and use our own stadium”, he said.
But, in an interview, Acting Town Clerk Dr Lucia Mkandla said she was not aware of Chahwanda’s intentions to convert mining land into the construction of a stadium.
“I am not even aware of that”, Dr Mkandla said.
“In actual fact, that matter is yet to get to my office and that means he is yet to complete the internal redress mechanisms associated with such”, she said.
The latest development has shattered Kwekwe’s dreams of having another honeymoon with premiership football. Since the disbanding of Lancashire Steel over a decade ago, premier league football has continued to elude the Midlands mining town.
Zwnews
