Refurbishing work on basketball courts at the National Stadium complex has been delayed as the Sports Development Foundation (SDF) is in the process of re-tendering the contract for work to be carried out on seating facilities and a synthetic court at the venue.

General Manager of the SDF Denzil Wilks, said he is hoping to complete the tender process as quickly as possible, so that the work on the facility can be completed.  

“We have had to re-tender two aspects of the work and that is what is causing the delay,” said Wilks.

“We have three aspects to the work, the base work, the synthetic court and the seating and the two aspects that we had to re-tender are the seating and the synthetic work and that will result in a delay in terms of the overall completion of the project,” Wilks said.   

“(We want to) ensure that we do not exceed the budget and so that is why we are re-tendering,” Wilks said before adding that he expects the facility to be completed in a couple of months.  

“We anticipate that by the end of August that we should be able to compete this project,” he said.  

Meanwhile, it is costing the SDF about $35 million to repair the national basketball courts.

The capacity will also be expanding from 400 to 1,000 as part of the refurbishing work currently being carried out.

"This will help the sport of basketball tremendously because where we are taking it to, where it is coming from, it is like from night to day," Wilks said. "It really was in a bad state. Everything was battered because the synthetic surface was in a deplorable state, and so it was all in shambles," he added.