Finally, stadium renamed after Sam Sono

Onalenna Kelebeile | Friday April 21, 2017 17:10

 

This was confirmed during an ongoing street, road and public facilities renaming exercise in the former mining town. Sono, who passed away in 2004, contributed immensely to football development in Selebi-Phikwe.

He is a former Township Rollers and national team goalkeeper.

The stadium has been renamed the Sam Sono Integrated Stadium in recognition of his contribution to football.

For long, successive motions were adopted to rename the stadium after Sono but there were never implemented. 

Principal Economic Planner, Lazarus Kolanyane told a press conference on Thursday that there had been no resistance in naming the facility after Sam Sono from the community during a consultation process. He said  in the past recommendations of naming the streets and facilities were done at the ministerial level and feedback took long.

He said now council is the ultimate approver of the names. “The name has been endorsed and we are yet to write to the family for consent to the decision very soon,” he said.

He explained that the name was submitted by the ward development committee during the consultation process. He also noted that from 2014 to 2016 streets and facilities naming was suspended countrywide.

Another person who was honoured was late councillor, Michael Tidimane. The Botshabelo industrial area north east following Botshabelo-BCL Mine road until the access road northwards of Botshabelo will be called Councillor Tidimane.

Town mayor Amogelang Mojuta said the naming of public facilities, streets and roads is necessary to support the upcoming locational addresses and ongoing land registration, promote legibility and facilities effective service delivery and also acts as a memorial for the local history. He said it also affords a chance to honour certain individuals from the community.

Mojuta added that the criteria used was such that names of living persons should not be used except only after being sanctioned by the Minister of Local Government and Rural Development amongst other criteria.

He explained that consultations started at the ward development committees to appreciate their input and enable them a level of ownership of the whole process. He said suggested names were then submitted to other structures until they reached the full council. 

Consultations according to council authorities started in December last year with the umbrella ward development committee followed by the issuance of a public notice that requested the community to submit proposed names. Ward development committees were then tasked to mobilise the community to propose names.