Deadline looms over World Cup stadium revamp

pretoria - revamping soccer city in johannesburg, the main event stadium for the 2010 soccer world cup, would be a challenge within the allotted time frame, carl grim, the chief executive of listed construction group aveng, said yesterday.

speaking after the r1.5 billion contract for the refurbishment of the stadium had been awarded to aveng's subsidiary, grinaker-lta construction, grim said work would begin within two weeks but the contract period was "going to be a challenge".

he was "pretty sure" the contract price had been revised down but indicated that this was a common process in both the public and private sectors.

"if the price is higher than the client would like to pay, you look at the makeup of the contract price and trim things down to get it on budget," he said.

grim said the city of johannesburg had awarded the contract to grinaker-lta construction in a joint venture with interbeton, which is part of the royal bam group from holland.

he said german company hbm stadien-und sportstättenbau, a specialist stadium construction company that had worked on stadiums for the 2006 soccer world cup in germany and was part of the royal bam group, would also be involved.

the stadium will have 94 700 seats, which will be covered by a roof leaving the soccer pitch open to sunlight. the contract is scheduled for completion in 2009.

but cecil rose, the president of the sa association of consulting engineers, warned that the world cup would be an anticlimax if there was a fall-off in the demand for construction sector goods and services after the event.



rose stressed that it was imperative to look beyond the event, adding that the world cup was less than three and a half years away - a short period for any planning horizon.

"but too much focus on that event only could lead to a loss of momentum after it," he said. "we would have created a large number of jobs in construction and other sectors and must maintain the momentum. vast numbers of people will have developed … new skills.

"we must make sure the expectations and momentum created for 2010 can be redirected to new opportunities thereafter."

rose added that andrew donaldson from the national treasury had said that the government planned to double expenditure under its housing grant scheme and to almost double expenditure on infrastructure rollout over the next three years, from r80 billion in 2005/06 to r150 billion in 2009/10.

"government plans to spend r410 billion over the next three financial years. this is a huge increase in activity in our sector and a huge challenge for the construction sector as a whole. this will place even more demands on the … sector and the need for expanding its capacity," he said.

however, rose said better economic and financial conditions would help promote the long-term sustainability of the construction sector, boosting confidence to invest in training and skills development.