Towards the 2010 World Cup

South Africa, they say, is a land of opportunities. Since time immemorial many Malawians have found their way into South Africa in their quest to find jobs and other opportunities.
History says that during the reign of Kamuzu Banda, the South African government recruited thousands of Malawians who worked in the South African mines and homes.
Even today, we still have many Malawians who are living and working in this so-called “land of opportunities”
History also tells us another pleasant story that it was the same South Africa which bankrolled the construction of our capital city, Lilongwe.
Surely, it seems from this background that Malawi has benefited from South Africa as much as it has benefited from us.
Now, South Africa will be hosting the FIFA World Cup in June, next year. This means that 32 football teams, of different countries, from all continents, will be trooping into South Africa.
All football fans from all corners of the world will be following this event with passion.
Indeed, football fanatics from far-flung areas will be coming into South Africa, in droves, to be part of this coveted event.
But, surely not all teams and the passionate fans will be putting themselves up in South Africa. Some, as likely as not, will be leaving in neighbouring countries of South Africa.
So, what has Malawi done to ensure that these opportunities trickle down to Malawi? Good question!
With the fast-fading hope of Malawi qualifying to the world cup, it means our other option is to reap other benefits from this football gala other than making ourselves present. But how are we going to reap other benefits? Another good question!
We need to create pleasant places that can attract football fans from other countries to visit or stay in Malawi when this event will be taking place in South Africa.
We can even persuade one or two football teams to do their final preparations in the country. In a way, this can give us a fair share of forex value.
To this end, we need to have five-star hotels, good roads, good stadiums and more. Malawi should borrow a leaf from other Southern African countries which are leaving no stone unturned in their preparations towards the 2010 World Cup. In fact, they are in the final stages of their preparations.
But, Malawi, it seems, has only done a minimal amount of preparations for this long-awaited event.
Of even more disheartening to note is that the preparations are painfully slower than expected.
By not being mean with the truth, we haven’t done thorough preparations save for the artificial turf at Kamuzu Stadium. To say the least, the few stadiums that we have in the country leave much room to be appreciated.
Some are so dilapidated that one cannot imagine world-class football teams doing preparations in them. The changing rooms are very horrible and awful. The toilets, bathtubs and showers are not in running order.
Even the billboards at our stadiums are very substandard and carry outdated and insipid messages.
When President Bingu wa Mutharika ascended into office in 2004, he promised to construct a state of the art stadium in Lilongwe, but till now the stadium is nowhere in sight.
As for the hotels, they are not enough and many are old and run down that need some renovations. Ironically, these hotels charge exorbitant tariffs that do no mirror with their standards.
On road construction and renovation, the good news is that the current government has shown a strong commitment to renovate and construct roads in the country. But more needs to be done especially through the renovation of strategic roads that lead to several tourist destinations.
In order to attract many tourists, we also need to strengthen the level of security in the country which seems to be loose. The current spate of armed robbery activities and other growing insecurities need to be brought to a screeching halt.
We still have got about nine months to the big event in South Africa and I do strongly feel that there is still time to correct some of these things. It’s not too little, too late!

***The author is a Media for Development student at Chancellor College.