By Onochie Anibeze

The Local Organising Committee for the ongoing Fifa Under 17 World Cup is expected to start bubbling again from this week.
We gathered, at the weekend,  that he Federal Government late last week approved additional N3 billion for them to take care of the financial crunch that has  hit them and which Vanguard had made public.

Their activities had suffered, resulting in problems in many sectors including communication, transportation, medical, infrastructure and other logistics. Training pitches were not yet ready in many centres.  Media centres were not functional and medical facilities were still not adequate when the championship kicked off on Saturday. Chairmen of sub_seats lacked money to carry out their duties and their jobs suffered too.

It was largely against this background that poor organization marked the opening ceremony which lacked colour. The Abuja Stadium where the opening ceremonies and matches were played was scanty. Poor media hype and awareness campaigns did little or nothing to sensitize Nigerians on the world championship that they are hosting. The additional money will, therefore, assist the LOC tremendously.

But  our  sources  maintained that the LOC could have done better with funds already allocated to them by the government. N9 billion was released and spent. The sports ministry was said to have used N5 billion on the venues and to get FIFA approve the tournament while the remaining was used by the LOC on contracts it awarded.

There have been issues on the N9 billion but the fact remained that LOC needed money to ensure the tournament does not end a huge disgrace to Nigeria as the problems indicated. The government, therefore, released additional money to ensure the tournament ends successfully.

When LOC submitted a budget of N35 billion to host the championship, Nigerians cried out over the bogus budget and the Federal Government was so outraged that it announced that the country was withdrawing from hosting the event. When government considered the implications they reversed the decision but cut the budget to 11 billion. But more than N35 billion is now being gulped by the same championship going by the N8 billion  Federal Government approved for NTA to upgrade their broadcast facilities, N12 billion on the organization so far and the monies governors used to upgrade their facilities. None of the governors has spent less than N1 billion. In some cases, some have spent  up to N2.billion.

In the original LOC budget, upgrading facilities at the venues was to be borne by them and this would have meant that the governors of the venues would have spent less.  The Federal government once spent N2 billion to assist the venues and each got N250m.  There was another euros 3.7m paid to Fifa for security and health matters in Nigeria. This was another expenditure that has increased the figures more than what the government envisaged. The spending has continued, making nonsense of the government’s claim to prudence and outcry against the LOC when they made a budget of N35 billion.