The Games of La Francophonie in the DRC postponed from 2022 to 2023
The Kinshasa Martyrs Stadium.
Photo Copyleft - Antoine Moens de hase
Text by: David Kalfa Follow
3 mins
The IX Games of La Francophonie, initially scheduled for Canada in 2021 and rescheduled for 2022 (August 19 to 28) in the DRC, have been postponed to 2023, announced the International Organization of La Francophonie (OIF).
The OIF invokes “
the state of progress
” of the preparations as well as “
the possibilities of a broad participation of young French-speaking athletes and artists
” to explain this decision.
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Another blow for the IX Games of La Francophonie.
After
changing host countries in 2019 from Canada to DR Congo
, then after
agreeing to postpone
the event from 2021 to 2022 because of the Covid-19 pandemic the following year, the International Organization of Francophonie (OIF) has once again rescheduled its flagship cultural and sporting event.
“
In accordance with the recommendations of the Orientation Council of the International Committee of the Games of La Francophonie (CIJF) held on January 25, the CPF [Permanent Council of La Francophonie] has come out in favor of the postponement for one year of the IX Games of the Francophonie which will be held in Kinshasa in 2023 on a date yet to be specified with regard to the international sports agenda
, indicates a press release dated February 8, 2022.
This decision followed an exchange on the progress of the organization of the IX Games of La Francophonie as well as on the possibilities of a large participation of young French-speaking athletes and artists
".
A budget of 48 million euros
The threat of a postponement had been hovering for several months
.
Suspicions of embezzlement around certain projects have complicated the Kinshasa 2022 file, already complicated by difficult deadlines and the Covid-19 pandemic.
Result: the accumulated delays would be substantial and would concern both the accommodation of the participants and the infrastructures supposed to host the events or the logistics, indicates a source to rfi.fr.
To read ► DRC: suspicions of embezzlement around the Games of La Francophonie are controversial
On the Congolese side, we do not deny the problems but we are philosophical.
“
It's not a bad decision,
put Isidore Kwandja Ngembo, national director of these IX Games of the Francophonie, into perspective at the microphone of Sébastien Nemeth.
The wrong decision would have been for the Games to be cancelled.
But the fact that we have postponed gives us the opportunity to work calmly, to do things correctly and to organize grandiose Games.
It is true that the DRC had already made considerable efforts.
The government has made 26 million euros available to us for the organisation.
He also paid the contractors
[approximately 22 million euros, Editor's note]
who have to build infrastructure
”.
Isidore Kwandja Ngembo also ensures that the initial specifications for the Games of La Francophonie were drafted before the Covid-19 crisis, which did not help.
“We will have to put in place a plan to welcome athletes and supporters in sanitary conditions”.
Games between July 23 and August 15, 2023?
Regarding precisely the accommodation of some 4,000 participants, the boss of the CNJ underlines that the DRC is now leaning towards a village made up of prefabricated buildings, near the Tata Raphaël stadium, rather than the construction of seven large buildings of twelve floors each.
This contract has also been cancelled.
As for knowing when these Games will take place in 2023, Isidore Kwandja Ngembo evokes a period from July 23 to August 15 that will have to be refined according to the international sports calendar.
Nine sports disciplines and eleven cultural competitions are indeed on the program of these Games which should have been held from August 19 to 28, 2022. The 10th edition is scheduled for 2025.
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