The minister of sports and chairman of the National Sports Commission (NSC), Dr. Tammy Danagogo, yesterday inaugurated the project steering committee and the project delivery team for the concession of the National Stadium, Surulere, Lagos, and the athletes’ hostel, Abuja.
Inaugurating the committee, Danagogo charged members to ensure transparency in the discharge of their duty, stressing that they should reciprocate the confidence reposed in them because they were chosen based on their track records.
Giving a brief history on the facilities up for the concession, the director general of the commission, Hon. Gbenga Elegbeleye, revealed that the decision to concession the National Stadium, Lagos, was predicated on the difficulty which arising from maintaining the stadium after the introduction of the “Envelop Budgeting” which pegged the Capital expenditure of the commission to an average of one billion naira per annum for all the six stadia and other sports facilities.
According to him, prior to this time, several attempts were made in the past at privatising and concession to no avail until January, this year, when President Goodluck Jonathan finally gave the go-ahead and granted the approval to the NSC to carry out the exercise.
The Lagos National Stadium popularly known as Sports City was constructed in 1972 for the hosting of the Second All-Africa Games in 1973. The stadium has since hosted major world, continental and national events including the FIFA Junior World Championship in 1999.
In the case of the athletes’ hostel, approval had earlier been secured to convert the facility at hostel to a 4-star hotel but work was, however, put on hold on the facilities due to paucity of funds. The construction work on the hostel project commenced in 2005 and has a 200-room accommodation capacity. Presently, work at the hostel has reached a 65 per cent completion level.
The NSC obtained the President’s approval to concession the project in July, 2013.
The terms of reference of the Project Steering Committee (PSC) are; to provide guidance to the Project Delivery Team; approve request and operations of the Project Delivery Team and to obtain necessary approvals from the Federal Executive Council (FEC). The terms of reference of the Project Delivery Team (PDT) include: undertake the day-to-day activities of Concession process; engage a Transaction Advisor (TA) in line with the national policy on PPP and finally, prepare periodic reports for the consideration of the Project Steering Committee (PSC).
