Rakgare questions CAF
Larona Makhaiza | Monday October 9, 2023 16:00
The 2027 AFCON hosting rights were awarded to Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania's joint bid. “The voting that took place in Cairo was regressive,” Rakgare said during a press briefing on Friday. He said CAF was supposed to use the audit carried out by audit firm, Price Waterhouse and Coopers (PWC), to determine the bidding. “As Botswana we challenge anyone to show us a better bid book than ours for 2027 perhaps taking out Algeria who had withdrawn before the elections,” he said. The minister said they only learnt that CAF had resorted to voting only when they were in Cairo. “Once we were in Cairo, in the morning of the congress we learnt that CAF had now resorted to voting on the day of the announcement,” Rakgare.
He further said the impression they got on the day was that voting would be left to top ranked countries as per the PWC audit. “The decision by CAF to us was not good as the original idea but come election day, we learnt every bid country would have the opportunity to be voted for regardless of how they faired in the auditors’ report,” he said. Rakgare implored CAF to consider more progressive and transparent systems such as they had initially proposed and stop using secret ballot. “When we were in Ivory Coast where there were elections, voting was done in front of us and counting was also done openly and we knew how everyone performed,” Rakgare said.
Rakgare bemoaned that to this date, it is still questionable that everyone does not how many votes Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania got. “Even the CAF president, Patrice Motsepe, before announcing the winners, stated he does not know how the votes went,” Rakgare said. “We still have not received the report from CAF and once we receive the report, we will know our way forward,” he said.
He, however, said Botswana was not questioning the integrity of CAF but instead they were dissatisfied with the process.