Sports centre a mess thanks to vandalism, grazing livestock

Vandals have stripped away everything of value from the multimillion-rand KwaNobuhle sports centre with the facility now nothing more than a livestock den.

Fences and other materials have all been stolen.

During yesterday’s council meeting, Nelson Mandela Bay mayor Athol Trollip called on KwaNobuhle residents to protect facilities built by the metro for them.

The facility, the Sizakele Khanzi Sports Centre, is the only indoor centre in the area.

“We cannot ever allow a public facility like the KwaNobuhle sports centre to degenerate into what it has become in a few short years.

“Communities must take ownership of public facilities and we need to ensure that we capacitate communities to do that,” Trollip said.

The centre has swimming pool facilities, change rooms, an indoor centre and sports grounds.

But all the fencing around the centre, the hockey poles and netball poles have been stolen.

One of the high-mast lights was lying on the ground, vandalised.

Trollip said job opportunities could have been created at the centre.

“That facility has been carried away and is now used only by livestock.

“We could have created jobs by getting people to secure that facility, to make sure that it was available for community to use for their benefit.

“Now it is only for the benefit of the livestock in KwaNobuhle.”

When a team from The Herald visited the centre yesterday there were donkeys roaming the grounds.