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Sikhumbuzo Moyo Senior Sports Reporter
WHITE City Stadium will have its tartan track scrapped after the contractor allegedly did a substandard job, Chronicle Sport has learnt.
While local organizing committee officials expressed ignorance on the imminent scrapping of the tartan track, a regional athletics official confirmed that part of the tract will be scrapped and relaid.

Highly placed athletics sources said only the 100m lane which was laid during a visit by the chief secretary in the office of the President and Cabinet Misheck Sibanda and five permanent secretaries, a few days before the African Union Sports Council Region 5 Under 20 Youth Games started was properly done.

The other 300m saw the installers choosing not to lay the regupol rubber as per requirements but only laying the other two components of the tartan track.

“We heard that the regupol was not laid due to an uneven track, there were areas where it was said to be a bit bumpy,” said an official who was corroborated by other officials in separate interviews.

“What happens during the laying of the tartan track is that the concrete and the asphalt, which comes after the concrete has to be level for the regupol rubber to be rolled over and then the chips but in this case the rubber was not laid,” said an official from the National Athletics Association of Zimbabwe who also requested anonymity.

He refereed Chronicle Sport to the regional athletics board chairperson, Moses Bhantsi of Botswana.

Chairperson of the local organizing committee in charge of infrastructure, Herbert Karumo refused to answer questions about the latest development and refered further questions to the Loc chairperson Khonzani Ncube.

“I am not aware of that, if the track was not up to standard I don’t think we would have held our competitions there. I was assured by Bhantsi, from the athletics confederation that the track was ready but maybe let me try and make inquiries,” said Ncube.

However another athletics official said it was unfortunate that Loc officials were denying something which they knew very well.

“The truth will eventually come out when that track finally gets scrapped and redone. We do not understand why the contractor did not do a proper job because all the required material was there,” said the official.

During a tour of the venue by the Chief Secretary Sibanda in November, engineers on the ground kept on saying that they were going to meet the deadline.

Bhantsi confirmed that the tartan track will be relaid but said this was meant to give it a longer life.

“Yes its true, the track will be scrapped. If the tartan track is laid on just hard surface it will not last longer as it gets more harder within a very short time, check the Nust one to confirm what I am saying. We expect the job to be done as soon as possible,” said Bhantsi.

He confirmed that the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) was yet to certify the venue as one of the accredited ones.

For the IAAF to send its experts the owners of the stadium have to pay $10,000 towards that process and in that case it will be the Bulawayo City Council.