Why are we pursuing the Afcon bid?

Mmegi Editor | Monday May 15, 2023 06:00

Most people believed that Botswana will too, surrender due to the astronomical budget associated with hosting the football tournament.

However, the Minister of Youth, Gender, Sports and Culture, Tumiso Rakgare has maintained that the country is steadfastly committed to hosting Afcon despite the enormous budget the country will incur to host. But the big question is ; the authorities hellbent on going ahead with the bid that looks insurmountable? Though it looks like a lost course already, but surprisingly, the State considers it a bid worth pursuing.

According to the facilities audit carried out in March, Botswana needs over P4 billion for infrastructure development, including constructing a new stadium in a joint-bid with Namibia.

Following the withdrawal of Namibia, the costs are expected to escalate. Whilst the country’s desire to host international events is commendable, we believe that reasonableness has to be the guiding principle. Therefore, it must be justifiable that what we want to do will have return on invest and is within the country’s economic and financial means.

From the onset, there has been too many red flags pointing to this bid but the authorities chose to look the other away in disregard of those.

It is said that the facilities audit report was done at a cost of P2.227 million, with Botswana’s share at P1.336 million; first red flag. Then there is talk of a Bid book to be produced by Ruben Reddy Architects,which will cost P65.656 million. All these amounts plus what is needed to upgrade and develop infrastructure is quite astronomical. As such, the burden was already too much for the country while Namibia was still on board because the country is already facing so many economical issues. There was also talk of trying to rope in another country to make it a three-country bid to share that burden.

On the other hand, there are so many competing pressing national interests that could benefit from the amounts related to the bid. As matters stand, the authorities are yet to show us any tangible evidence that there is value in hosting this tournament. There is no convincing evidence that we will get returns on investment. Now why do authorities believe it would be easy to do it alone?

The issue of maintenance of facilities is another one. Bigger economies such as South Africa have shown that it is not easy to maintain facilities post the tournament. Botswana is already struggling to maintain existing, smaller facilities such as Masunga Sports Complex, how will it manage with even bigger facilities?

Quite clearly, these are the questions that the authorities must ponder on and decide wisely. It seems Botswana is not listening to the voice of reason because there is not even buy-in from the general public on the matter. But the big question is why do authorities want to press ahead with a bid that would gobble tax payers’ funds for a negligible exercise?

Today’s thought

“For any tournament to succeed, you need the big guns to fire.”-

Mario Kempes