Cape Town – South Africa has wasted resources on next year’s Fifa World Cup and will be left with stadiums that are no more than white elephants, a critical new documentary says.

South Africa has spent trillions of rands to build new stadiums and refurbish existing venues in 10 cities where games will be played.

But social activists and academics say the funds would have been better spent tackling poverty, housing shortages and a health system buckling under a major HIV/Aids epidemic.

“When you build enormous stadiums, you (are) shifting those resources ... from building schools or hospitals, and then you have these huge structures standing empty and being used to a very limited extent.

“They become white elephants,” anti-apartheid veteran Dennis Brutus, who was jailed with Nelson Mandela on Robben Island in the 1960s, says in documentary film Fahrenheit 2010.

Lingering concerns that some stadiums will become empty shells that are a burden to taxpayers have threatened to take the shine off government plans to leave a meaningful post- tournament legacy. In September, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said the government faced a R2,3-billion shortfall for six new stadiums.

Besides funding challenges, claims of corruption and tender rigging have been linked to the new Mbombela Stadium in Nelspruit, where only four of the 64 World Cup games will be played. The location of other new stadiums has also been criticised.

“There is currently no contingency plan saying what’s actually going to happen to this stadium (Mbombela) once the World Cup is gone ... and at the end of the day one can only think that the stadium is going to stand redundant and empty afterwards,” said Anthony Benadie, an opposition politician.

Feature documentary Fahrenheit 2010, written and directed by Australian Craig Tanner, was screened to a Cape Town audience for the first time on Sunday.

South Africa is hoping 450000 foreign tourists will boost revenues during the month-long tournament starting June 11. It is also hoped that marketing the country’s attractions to a global audience estimated at one billion will lead to a long- term tourist boom and job creation.

But besides a politically connected elite, centred in the construction sector, there is little evidence so far to suggest South Africans will benefit economically. Fifa expects to make R25-billion from its 2010 television broadcasting deals alone, more than the combined total achieved for television rights in its 2002 and 2006 tournaments.

“The tragedy is that public funds have been looted for a moment in our history. People are still going to be living in shacks, the jobs are not sustainable – this is a blatant misuse of funds,” said sociologist Ashwin Desai. – Reuters