The final completion inspection of the 2010 FIFA World Cup Soccer City stadium, which would host the opening and final matches of the tournament, has gotten under way, JSE-listed construction group Aveng reported on Wednesday.

The South African construction group and its subsidiary, Grinaker-LTA, celebrated the roof wetting of the 89 000-seat stadium, which was completed on schedule.

“We are immensely proud of this landmark development. Not only does it highlight African design and ingenuity, but this was also achieved with one-million disabling injury-free man hours – an unprecedented achievement under such tight deadlines. This bears testament to Aveng and its partners’ unrelenting focus on safety,” Aveng CEO Roger Jardine said.

He noted that the construction of the stadium had contributed R512-million worth of procurement investments to broad-based black economic-empowerment companies and created 4 700 job opportunities.

About 10 000 t of reinforced steel, 13 000 t of structural steel, nine-million bricks and 90 000 m3 of concrete had been used to construct the stadium, which Aveng said was Africa’s largest stadium.

“The structure has a double layer of fabric roof and required 32 400 fibre cement panels to complete the calabash-inspired design of the façade. It has taken some 9 980 000 hours to complete the construction of Soccer City, since the project’s inception in 2007,” added Grinaker-LTA project director Mike Moody.

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