Nigeria’s Minister of Youth and Sports, Solomon Dalung has explained that the concession of the National Stadium in Lagos, has been slowed down by lack of funds.
Dalung said that the concession of the stadium was inherited by his ministry, but noted that the machinery was not set in motion.
“In the 2016 budget, there was no provision for it, so we want intervention from government but the government has said for now they don’t have funds and we don’t want the process to end,” he said in Lagos on Monday.
“So, we have applied for funds for the process so that we can have funds which were allocated earlier for renovation and deploy it to the concession process.
“We have gotten so many people who have declared interest, their profile is indeed rich enough and they have even given us an idea of what they intend to put in place but our agreement has been that it is not only the national stadium.
“Whosoever is coming into the concession arrangement will take the adjoining land too and must develop it alongside the national stadium by building either a five star hotel there and bars around it before you will talk about the national stadium, so that we don’t come and pick the nation stadium alone and then run back into the same situation we are trying to come out of.
“If we succeed in getting the funds, we will be moving ahead with the issue of the concession and it may be within the year or early next year”, he added.
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