Is Gaborone ready?

Mmegi Editor | Tuesday April 29, 2014 11:07

The economic spinoffs to SMMEs, the informal and the formal sector are nearly immeasurable. A market of 2,500 consumers and hundreds of support staff descending with fistfuls of allowances and being restricted to spending only within Gaborone. The stuff of which dreams are made!

For months now, sponsors, nominated officials and the media have been drumming up awareness around the event. They are ready.

The multi-sectoral Botswana AYG Organising Committee, which includes legislators, city fathers and technocrats, has garnered input and feedback far and wide. They are ready.

What is not so clear, however, is whether Gaborone is ready. Thus far, the city appears to be on a business-is-usual mode with no indication of the impending rush of diverse visitors due within weeks. Across the world where such games have been held before, cities have been transformed into kaleidoscopes of colour ahead of the event, piquing anticipation among guests and residents alike. The 2010 World Cup in South Africa will forever be remembered for how that country and its cities transformed themselves into a single marketing vehicle; from airport to kombi, a remarkable unity of purpose. It is doubtful that the ordinary Gaborone resident is at the most knowledgeable about the AYG and at the very least aware of them. The city continues its usual beat without any indication to the arriving visitor that the biggest sporting event in the country’s history is a breath away.

It is the nature of unsound governance that issues often circulate and remain within the upper echelons, without filtering through to the grassroots for feedback and adoption. The city fathers and other principles leading the AYG effort have left Gaborone residents in the dark as they prepare to host our visitors.

Forgetting that visitors are esteemed in Setswana culture, city fathers and AYG organisers have prepared a nasty little surprise for the oblivious Gaborone residents who will awake on May 22 to a city chock a bloc with strangers.

From Members of Parliament, to councillors, to the Village Development Committees and dikgotla, it would appear the city fathers have neglected to inform residents to prepare to welcome the African visitors. Neither is the city itself prepared, judging by the lack of improvements to the quality of roads, transport system and other basic services. Traffic lights are down all over town, while tall grass lines critical routes around the city. Livestock continue to enjoy the city centre as a stomping ground, while litter is strewn around the unkempt bushes that are an eyesore around the city.

When will we put our best foot forward? Will we give a truly African welcome to our brothers or will we repulse them?

                                                               Today’s thought

                                    “Visitor’s footfalls are like medicine; they heal the sick.”

 

                                                                - African Proverb