By SHAMAOMA MUSONDA –
A STAGGERING US$39, 000 (about K257,400) was raised in pledges for this year’s Zambia Sugar Open Championship during a cheque-hand over ceremony at the Lusaka Golf club on Thursday night.
The pledges came after Local Organising Committee (LOC) member Rodwell Chawatama called on corporate entities to join Zambia Sugar in sponsoring the Zambia Sugar Open tournament to be hosted in Lusaka.
With Zambia Sugar presenting a $150, 000 (about K990,000) cheque to the organisers and also penning the contract for this year’s tournament, various sponsors also joined the golfing party.
Zambia Golf Union (ZGU) vice-president, Jason Kazilimani Jnr expressed happiness with the move by Zambia Sugar to be part of one of Zambia’s biggest annual competitions.
Kazilimani also praised other business houses for joining the party, stating it was a show of confidence in the committee that Lusaka Golf Club had put in place.
“We have a good committee and it has the right mix, character and determination. I am pretty confident they will deliver a good tournament. We are also happy with the state of the golf course and the Sunshine Tour through Garry Todd, who was here for inspection, gave it a good bill of health,” he said.
After Zambia Sugar Plc managing director, Rebecca Katowa had finished giving her speech in which she pointed out the humorous similarities  between sugar production and golf, Chawatama asked for pledges and five companies quickly chipped in with pledges of $39, 000 within a minute.
First up was accounting giant KPMG Zambia, who pumped in $10, 000, the same amount that was pledged by Banc ABC and  Nico Insurance while Multichoice Zambia pledged $5, 000 and Pan-Africa weighed in $4, 000.
“We have partners that are so lovely, look at Nico, they called me in the morning and told me they had $5, 000 and brought the cheque. And later when Nsama Mataka, a committee member, called to say Nico had a change of heart, my heart sunk but he told me they were adding a $5, 000 and brought the cheque also,” he said.
Katowa said her company was proud to be associated with the Zambia Sugar Open tournament.
LOC chairperson, Roy Penney praised Zambia Sugar for coming in to help the committee with the sponsorship as well as one of the Pro-Am tournaments.
He also revealed that pay television giant supersport would do a one-hour programme on the Zambia Sugar Open and would run it up to seven months.