Speaking to Standardsport this week, Harare Athletic Board secretary general Silas Muringani said the event has been cancelled due to the non-availability of sporting facilities and lack of funds.
“We do not have our own sporting facilities hence we depend on hiring sporting facilities that are at our disposal. But this time around we had to cancel the Robert Lerumo Championships because we needed something close to US$2 000 to run this event, which is beyond our reach,” Muringani said.
He added, “We needed US$1 100 for hiring the venue and officials need to be paid at the end of the day so we cannot afford it.”Muringani went on to mention three main sporting facilities, the National Sports Stadium, A and B arenas and the University of Zimbabwe track, which he said were built by the government ahead of the 1995 All Africa Games.
“The most disappointing thing is that after the event other associations took over the running of these facilities and they are now charging prohibitive fees for their use.
“We have been using the UZ track for our trainings but we have since stopped because they are charging us US$5 per kid per day, which we cannot afford. This time of the year becomes difficult to use facilities in schools because they would have changed set ups at their grounds preparing for the rugby season, so we are left with no choice but to cancel some of these events,” Muringani concluded.
