South Africa’s government has added a further R2-billion to the kitty set aside for building the 2010 FIFA World Cup stadiums and related infrastructure, bringing the total allocation to R19,4-billion, it announced last week.

The previous amount committed to stadiums was R8,4-billion, and cost increases caused the National Treasury to assign an additional R1,2-billion, it said in its 2008 Budget Review.

“Stadium construction is progressing rapidly, with all projects ahead of schedule,” it stated. “As a result, an additional R1,9-billion was brought forward from 2008/9 by means of a special adjustments appropriation in 2007.”

Government had allocated R9-billion to public transport projects related to the World Cup.

The Treasury said that the Depart- ment of Communications would receive an extra R300-million to fund information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure at stadiums in time for the tournament.

It also allocated State-owned ICT firm Sentech an additional R257-million for the digitisation of tele- vision broadcasting.

In an attempt to mitigate the negative effects that South Africa’s abnormally high crime rate might have on the World Cup, government said it would inject R640-million into the police force to deploy 31 000 officers who will perform security functions during the event.

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