Residents of Nelspruit, South Africa are asking how could there be money for a 46,000-seat stadium while many of them still fetch water from dirty puddles and live without electricity or toilets?Alhough only four of the World Cup’s 64 games are to be played in Nelspruit, a $137 million stadium was built for the occasion.
South Africa has spent more than $6 billion on stadiums,roads, airports and other projects for the tournament that is meant to display South Africa at its very best: a modern, prosperous nation friendly to commerce, tourists and democratic ideals.
But Nelspruit, preparing for its own six hours of World Cup soccer, is instead an example of the nation at its worst, with distressing inequality — measured by some economists as the worst in theworld — and an epidemic of local corruption that often leads the downtrodden to rise up in anger, writes Barry Bearak.
“No point in trying tohide it, there was a total collapse of good governance, primarily around the World Cup,” said Lassy Chiwayo, Nelspruit’s mayor, who was installed as an emergency caretakerin late 2008 after his predecessor was removed. Independent investigators into the matter found that millions of dollars had been misspent on big contracts. Their final report calls for criminalcharges against the former municipal manager and the directors of three companies managing the stadium project.