FAZ Linked to Heroes Stadium Power Outages After Failing to Buy K10, 000 Diesel
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Tags: Football Association of Zambia, Heroes Stadium Power Outages
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Preliminary investigations indicate that the Football Association of Zambia were partly to blame for the scandalous power blackouts at Heroes Stadium after neglecting to honour their part of the bargain to buy fuel for the standby generators in case of a blackout.
According to sources familiar with the development at meetings prior to the game, roles had been allocated to various wings of government and also partners like Zesco with FAZ tasked to secure fuel for the generators, but Football House opted to gamble with the assurance from Zesco that there would be no power cut.
FAZ was asked to purchase diesel worth K10, 000 to take care of the capacity of the standby generators at the stadium but did not honor that obligation. Even when the first power outage occurred, FAZ only released K1, 000 to mitigate the damage which was nothing close to what was required.
During the international friendly match between Zambia and Gabon that ended 1-all, the stadium experienced power outages with President Edgar Lungu watching the match.
Inside sources have told Zambia Reports that a combined team of Zesco, Office of the President and Police has been directed by State House to investigate who was to blame for the seven minute first half outage and another just before kickoff at National Heroes Stadium in Lusaka.
“Zesco, OP and the Police are carrying out investigations right now and it all is pointing to FAZ. It seems they were obliged to pay for the fuel for the Gen Set but overlooked it under the circumstances,” a source familiar with the development said.
Amos Chanda, the presidential spokesperson, also said; “[the] Stadium manager who had been tasked to buy diesel for emergency generator power did not do so until power went off that is when he attempted to d so. There are questions to be asked here! There is a good case to probe whether the engineers story of a power failure in the Matero line is without human cause.”
Apparently the stadium manager had waited for funds for the diesel from FAZ which never came.
The event scarred an otherwise potentially delightful moment with fans turning out enmasse at the Heroes Stadium following Sunday’s 2-1 victory over Kenya in a Group E Africa Cup qualifier away in Nairobi.
By Peter Adamu
