BY DANIEL NHAKANISO BUSINESS mogul Kudakwashe Tagwirei led a tour of the dilapidated Rufaro Stadium and its surrounding areas on Tuesday as his fuel company, Sakunda Holdings, prepare to begin work to turn the facility into a world class stadium.
Harare City Council (HCC) is finalising the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Sakunda Holdings which will see the energy giant, awarded a long term lease to refurbish the now dilapidated football facility.
Sakunda Holdings are the current principal sponsors of Zimbabwean football giants, Dynamos and Highlanders.
They have now gone a step further to extend their support for local football by refurbishing facilities such as Rufaro as part of their corporate social investment programme.
Tagwirei expressed excitement at the joint venture project with the Harare City Council.
“I am excited by challenges such as this one and you will see that we will all enjoy it as we participate together in this programme. This is not a Sakunda programme, it is a Harare City and Sakunda programme,” Tagwirei said.
“We are just there to make sure that the dream that you (Harare City) have becomes a reality so that we all move together as a society. Thank you very much to Harare City for allowing us to participate with you and I pray that this is going to be a fruitful joint venture and I hope we are going to do many other things together,” Tagwirei added.
The tour of the Mbare-based football facility was also attended by Harare City Council officials led by acting Town Clerk Phakamile Moyo.
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Moyo said the local authority’s Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Sakunda is yet to be signed while the value and length of the proposed lease is yet to be determined.
Sakunda Holdings representative Nqobile Magwizi said the signing of the MoU will be followed by the environment and social impact assessment, the engagement of the feasibility study which will bring out the scope of what needs to be done.
Representatives from the two parties have are also scheduled a tour to South Africa next month where they will have an opportunity to assess standards of their stadia.
“We are in the process of finalising with the foreign architect that we are going to be hosting. Obviously, South Africa is a good start so we will be looking at a few stadiums in South Africa assessing and seeing if we can get everything we need from there and that will obviously impact how we are scoping as we proceed with this project,” Magwizi said.
