The lack of maintenance is evident at Sir Ignatius Kilage Stadium.
Lae MP and Deputy Prime Minister, John Rosso, outlined the rundown state of the sporting facilities when presenting jerseys to the Lae City FC last week.
“I’ve written to the PNG Sports Federation to hand that stadium back to Lae City Authority so we can upgrade, maintain and run it for the city,” Rosso said.
“Right now, they are running it and there’s no maintenance and it’s really rundown.
“All the facilities will be handed over in the next three or four weeks. Once it’s handed over then we will use the city money to upgrade the facilities to a standard you guys can use and other sporting institutions can use.”
Rosso said LCA’s long-term goal is to build a proper soccer stadium, saying “Lae is the home of soccer”.
“It would not be right if we did not have a world-class stadium in Lae so I’m looking for money to try to build it.
“I just came back from Honiara and the stadium that we’ve donated to the Solomon Islands for the Pacific Games – paid for by Papua New Guinea – is about K40 million. World-class, FIFA-standard stadium. That’s the sort of facility that I intend to build in Lae.”
Rosso further outlined that his priorities are health, education, law and order and infrastructure.
(The Sir Ignatius Kilage Stadium in Lae, Morobe Province)