The Minister of Sports and Chairman of the National Sports Commission (NSC), Tammy Danagogo on Tuesday March 18, 2014 inaugurated the Project Steering Committee and the Project Delivery Team for the concessioning of the National Stadium in Lagos as well as the athletes’ hostel in Abuja.
While inaugurating the Committee, the Minister charged its members to imbibe transparency in the discharge of their duty; saying they should reciprocate the confidence reposed on them because they were chosen based on their track records.
In a brief history on the facilities to concession, the Director-General of the Commission, Gbenga Elegbeleye revealed that the decision to dispense the National Stadium, Lagos is based on the difficulties experienced from maintenance efforts on the stadium after the introduction of ‘Envelop Budgeting’ which has pegged the capital expenditure of the Commission to an average of one billion naira annually for the six stadia and other sports facilities.
According to him, prior to this time, several attempts have been made in the past to privatize and concession to no avail, until January, 2014 when President Goodluck Jonathan finally granted approval to the NSC to concession the stadium. He said that the Lagos National Stadium was constructed in 1972 for the hosting of the Second All Africa Games in 1973. Adding, the stadium has since hosted major world, continental and national events, including the FIFA Junior World Championship in 1999.
Speaking on the athletes’ hostel, he disclosed that approval had earlier been secured to convert the facility from hostel structure to a four star hotel, but work was however put on hold on the facility due to paucity of funds. The construction work on the hostel project, he explained commenced in 2005 with a 200 room accommodation capacity and presently, work at the hostel has reached a 65 percent completion level. The NSC obtained the president’s approval to concession the project in July, 2013.
“The terms of reference for the Project Steering Committee (PSC) are: to provide guidance to the project delivery team; approve requests and the operations of the project delivery as well as obtain required approvals from the Federal Executive Council (FEC),” the DG of NSC noted.
He informed on the terms of reference of the Project Delivery Team (PDT) that they will undertake the day-to-day activities of the concession process; engage a Transaction Advisor (TA) in line with the National Policy on PPP and prepare periodic reports for the consideration of the Project Steering Committee (PSC).
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