African Games: Did Ghana overspend on Legon Stadium?

In a recent publication on its website, the University of Ghana took great pride for having been the “epicenter” of the 2023 African Games in Accra.

This, as it rightly noted, was due to the fact that “majority of the facilities hosting the events” were located within its campus.

In truth, the University of Ghana Stadium, also known as the Legon Stadium, hosted the opening and closing ceremonies of the Games in March 2024.

Work on the Legon Stadium started in 2004. It was originally funded by the University and the government through the Ghana Education Trust (GET) Fund.

Twenty years ago, no one would have thought that what began as a small university project would one day end up being the host stadium for a major international event like the African Games.

The stadium’s drawn-out construction timeline was marked by abandonment, especially after 2008, when GET-Fund suspended financing.

In 2013, when Dr. Bella Bello Bitugu became the University of Ghana’s Sports Director, one of his first moves was to start lobbying for the restoration of GET Fund’s financing for the stadium project.

It worked.

From 2016, after an eight-year lull, construction work resumed.

Dr. Bitugu tells The Fourth Estate that the University was able to secure about Ghc 11 million ($570,000 then and $740,000 now, adjusted for inflation) in tranches to “do things that would at least make the stadium functional”.

“We did all the seats, apart from the VIP,” he says. “We also did the utility lines – electricity and water. Then we did the offices of the sports directorate. The tartan track was done. The scoreboard, the floodlights and other electricals were also procured.”

Dr. Bitugu says the stadium’s main structure – “the block work” as he calls it – was nearing completion by the time the government decided to step in and complete it for the African Games.

“It was a lot of concrete and it was 80 to 90% complete,” he says.

This was in late 2021.

The government claims to have pumped $34 million into getting the stadium ready just in time for the Games. The stadium was commissioned on March 1, 2024, just a week before it hosted the opening ceremony of the Games.

Awarded to Consar Limited, the project included costs for two additional facilities – a $2.9 million six-lane warm up track beside the main stadium, as well as a $4.8 million Rugby field elsewhere on the University of Ghana campus.

In effect, about $26.3 million out of the $34 million went into completing the main stadium.

The contract, sighted by The Fourth Estate, details $10.2 million spent on finishing the various stands, and $4 million spent on “special installations” (including $1.4 million on floodlights, $700,000 on an electrical score board, and $639,000 on standby generators and underground fuel tank).

Also, $8.4 million was expended on “additional facilities”, which, apart from the expenditure on the warm up track and the rugby stadium, includes $517,000 spent on upgrading the VIP to VVIP and $117,000 on boreholes.

An amount of $9.6 million went into “external works, services etc”, which includes roads and pavements, horticultural works, sports equipment, internal and external covered parking and walkways, electrical installations, storm water drainage, water supply and fire service.

A lot of sports industry stakeholders have raised concerns over the cost of completing the stadium, especially against its endowment, and compared to similar facilities elsewhere.

One of such persons is sports journalist Fentuo Tahiru.

Tahiru is an acclaimed authority on the 2023 African Games, closely covering the competition from Ghana’s winning of the hosting rights in October 2018 to the completion of the Games in March 2024. Crucially, he was the lead commentator for athletics at the Games, held at the Legon Stadium.

He wonders: In 2016, Ghana was able to build a 16,000-capacity stadium with ancillary facilities in Cape Coast for $30 million ($38.9 million in 2024, adjusted for inflation), and yet managed to spend $34 million to renovate an almost-complete, 10,000-capacity Legon Stadium, which in his opinion has many “deficiencies”.

“I have to be fair, though,” Tahiru says. “I feel the biggest legacy from the African Games is the athletics track at the Legon Stadium. It is the only certified track in Ghana now.”

One million was spent on upgrading an already existing field and tartan track.

“This means that records set on the track will be recognized by international bodies, and we can now host international athletics events there. Also, I believe it will catapult our next generation of athletes,” Tahiru explains.

“But for $34 million, that stadium should be delivering more than just a standard track. People have built massive stadiums for less.”

He adds: “Listen, it should be a CAF (Confederation of African Football) certified stadium, but it is not. How do you have a modern stadium in 2024 that cannot meet the required CAF standards?

“There are issues with pitch quality and pitch dimensions. There’s only a make-shift media tribune and no media center. Even the dressing rooms are very small and you can access one from the other. That is not standard. In my opinion, if you take the track out, we’re dealing with what is basically a concrete absurdity.”

Dr. Bitugu, the facility manager for the Legon Stadium, says it is unfair to judge the stadium by those standards.

“This particular stadium was not built for the nation, it was supposed to be built by the university to use as a university,” he says. “It wouldn’t have attracted the attention of people and the media had it not been for the African Games.”

Tahiru believes there would have been “value for money” and “efficient spending” had the Legon Stadium’s construction been in private hands. He makes a reference to the 10,000-capacity TNA Stadium which was recently built by Goldfields Ghana Limited for $13 million in Tarkwa.

A quantity surveyor who only agreed to speak to The Fourth Estate on condition of anonymity says the cost of building materials “more than tripled” after the COVID-19 pandemic.

This, he says, means it would be misleading to compare the $30 million used to build the bigger, more endowed Cape Coast Stadium in 2016 to the $34 million used to complete the considerably smaller, less endowed Legon Stadium in 2024.

Nonetheless, he says: “It is fair to say that the $34 million figure, given that it was used to finish a project that had almost reached completion, is definitely too high. It is questionable.”