National government to take over construction of Dandora stadium

City Hall is considering handing over stalled Dandora Stadium to the national government for its completion.

This follows delays by the stadium’s contractor to return on site to complete the construction of the Sh350 million facility.

Nairobi County Education and Sports Executive Janet Ouko said they are mulling engaging the State Department for Public Works, in a government-to-government agreement, to take over the remaining bit of work at the stadium.

This as efforts to have the contractor, M/S Scanjet Construction Limited, back on site to finalise the remaining construction works has proven futile.

In February, President Uhuru Kenyatta directed City Hall to ensure the stadium is completed to benefit 32 teams that depend on the ground.

She explained that the county government had already written to concerned stakeholders end of February seeking an advisory on how to break the impasse so that the stadium can be completed.

“We had a meeting with all concerned stakeholders and came up with that option. The advisory was based on if we could explore working with the Public Works department to take over the remaining bits of the work,” said Ouko.

Ouko said that the contractor’s contract time has elapsed as it was to run for 18 months and it has been over two years since the contract was awarded.

“At the end of the day, the community needs the field. A total of 32 teams have no field to play because of the stalling of the project. Because of Covid-19, they have been locked out of schools they used to use their fields as their playgrounds,” she said.

Last month, the county government signaled all was not well by saying they were looking for new contractors to build the three other stadia in the capital following the Dandora Stadium construction fiasco.

M/S Scanjet was awarded the construction of the Dandora Stadium as part of four stadia in Nairobi at a cost of Sh1.3 billion in the 2017/2018 financial year.

The other three stadia included Kawangware Stadium to be built at a cost of Sh250 million, Kihumbuini at Sh250 million and Ziwani at Sh186.6 million.

However, trouble began when the contractor changed contract specifications for the Sh350 million Dandora Stadium from concrete to steel structure.

This followed an investigation by the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) which flagged irregularities in the awarding of the tender, alteration of contract specifications, suspected irregular payments and forgery of documents while also questioning the standard of the work.

Consequently, construction work at the stadium was stopped after the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) opened investigations into the tendering process and irregular payment of Sh196 million for the project.

The contractor would then leave the site in September, 2019 with the works 80 percent complete, delaying the final touches that were remaining with the stadium set to be launched last year July.

Already, more than 3,000 seats had been installed in the terraces with changing rooms and floodlights fitted.