By Omulo Okoth

When I came to London five years ago, I stayed in Canary Wharf in East London.

Other than the Hilton Docklands and a few residential houses, the only other landmark was The Thames, which still, in addition to the financial district overlooking Docklands, the most visible. The rest were a marshland with nothing happening.

Now East London is a highly-developed district rivalling other leafy parts of London, with an environmental theme, a labyrinth of transport system never seen in this part of London whose most famous son David Beckham played a pivotal role in bringing the Olympics here, and massive infrastructural development hitherto only seen in CDB and elsewhere.

With the Olympic Games being staged in this part of the city, residents are going to benefit a lot from the roads and facilities built for the Games and for posterity. Our Government has a strong presence in these Games.

The President is already leading a strong delegation here, that includes civil service bosses, parastatal chiefs and private sector captains to leverage the successes of our athletes to market Kenya.

The President attended the Diaposra Conference yesterday. Other conferences are going on in the sidelines addressing the Kenyan economy. The Prime Minister will be attending the closing ceremony.

Business as usual

We must not return home from London only to engage the ‘business as usual’ gear. We must not just return home to marvel at the beauty of the city of London and its Westminster Abbey, or Buckingham Palace, or Wembley, or Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, The Church of Abbot, The Wheel et al.

We must not just count our victories and losses on the track, pool or boxing rings and mats. The Government ought to take their ultimate realisation of the potential of sport and invest in it.

Good roads

Yes, we now have some good roads in Nairobi and in the countryside. But we also know that we have youths who will need a future. Those youths don’t even dream of owning cars. Although the good roads are helping in spurring the economy, which is a good thing for the populace, the youths don’t feel direct benefit.

Our youth are talented but are wasting in the streets of our urban centres. They need a stage to showcase their talent. They need qualified coaches to mentor them and nurture their talent.

We keep talking about hosting major games. Yet the only facilities available are the ones that were used to host the 1987 All Africa Games. What have we added? Many of them like the City Park Stadium belong to the Museum of Kenya. Kasarani, renovated for a certain unrealistic figure, is in Nairobi. Do Mombasa, Kisumu, Nakuru and others have any stadia to talk about?

Even bidding to host the African Cup of Nations is not realistic because Nairobi should not host every match. The African Football Confederation demands at least four cities to also share in the glory of hosting the continental football finals. Therefore, we should be having equally good stadiums in Kisumu, Mombasa, Nakuru, Thika, Nyeri and others. Even renovating Kip Keino Stadium in Eldoret has been a problem.

We cannot compare our economy with that of England. The cost of hosting these Games is enough for a whole year’s budget.

It is predicted that the whole amount of hosting these Games, when they end, will be £11 billion. Yes, one 11, and nine zeroes. That is equivalent to Sh1.1 trillion. Our budget for 2012/13 is Sh1.45 trillion. Needy students will require Sh4.4 billion, IDPs Sh1.8 billion, Women and Youth Sh1.62 billion. At this rate, we still have national priorities that far outway the need to develop other infrastructure for the immediate future.

However, Government should discuss with multilateral and bilateral donors on the development of sporting infrastructure because sport is serious business.

It touches on security, economy, politics and virtually every aspect of human life and national agenda.

— The writer is The Standard Sports Editor iomulo@standardmedia.co.ke