Recreational space at Amelia’s Ward to be upgraded

Residents of Amelia’s Ward in Linden, Region 10, will soon have a volleyball court and other upgrades to the recreational space in the community.

President, Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali, during a walkabout in the community on Monday morning, requested that the area be cleaned and the fence be completed so that a volleyball court could be added to the existing basketball facility.

During his interaction with residents, the president heard monies that were allocated to upgrade the facility were misused under the previous administration resulting in the works coming to a halt.

The president then instructed Regional Executive Officer (REO) Dwight John and Minister within the Ministry of Public Works, Deodat Indar to work out the cost of completing the fence.

“What we should do now is just clean up the place, finish off the fencing and so, see if we could get the volleyball court, a hard court complete for the volleyball, and clean up the rest of the area so children also can use the area, make it a children friendly kind of environment,” President Ali said.

The president told residents he was willing to work on other community projects, pointing out that there is a need for recreational facilitates

“A heavy demand for recreational facilities, whilst we are completing the synthetic track, whilst we will be working on the Mackenzie club ground, whilst we are going to fix the basketball court and so on, in these small communities, we are going to come in, we are going to see where we are going to partner with you and work on projects to support young people and support sports and support development,” he noted.

The Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport will also be part of the interventions.

President Ali also visited other communities in the mining town where he restated his administration’s commitment to meeting people at the grass roots.

“One of the important pillars of the government now is that we deliver what the people want, we understand what the people want,” he said.

The president noted that Linden is poised for development with discussions now on the expansion of the Wismar bridge to a four-lane bridge and the Linden to Mabura Road, which will open a lot of opportunities for the town.

“That will open up a lot of opportunities for Linden to become a major service hub for the mining sector, but we also have to ensure we train the young people, heavy-duty mechanics as operators and so on.”

He also noted the upgrade to the Soesdyke -Linden Highway and the one thousand homes initiative.

There will also be opportunities for youth development.  

“So very soon you will see that we will launch a technical programme in Linden aimed not at putting people in the technical institute but at identifying the young people, training them as heavy-duty operators, training them as mechanics, so we are training them to get into the workforce and get employability,” President Ali said.