Financial woes delay Bathoen statue project

CHIPPA LEGODIMO
Correspondent | Friday September 11, 2009 00:00

The committee needs over P200, 000 for the project and although there are some pledges to help in raising the amount needed to pay, the smelter company in Pretoria as well as the sculptor Masilonyane Radinoga, raising the total amount could take months.
Committee chairman, Kebapetswe Telekelo has told Arts and Culture that the statue has been completed and that only lack of funds has delayed its delivery from South Africa.
Various fund-raising activities have been held in Kanye, but most of them flopped and raised very little for the project.

'We need money to pay the sculptor and to pay the company that turned the statue into metal and we need nothing less than P200 000, the kind of money that we do not have at the moment, not even a small fraction of it,' Telekelo said.

According to Telekelo, efforts to get more people involved have been futile. 'We have made several appeals to all the people in Gangwaketse, meetings were called at the main Kgotla to address the various headmen from around the district and the community at large. It was our hope that those headmen from outside Kanye will convey the message to their people and encourage them to contribute whatever amount towards the project.
We cannot conclude that people were not informed because even those in Kanye have not been forthcoming,' he said.

'But this is voluntary work and we cannot force people to make contributions, but we thought as our great leader every Mongwaketse would be excited about contributing towards a project to honour Bathoen. There are some pledges, which are far off reaching the target, but we appreciate the efforts those people are making,' he said.

He said that they would continue in their efforts to get more people to contribute towards the project. They are also considering other alternatives of raising money for the worthy cause.

The committee has not approached government for funding, according to Telekelo, because the project was supposed to be financed by contributions from the communities.
'We have never considered that option because from the start we needed to encourage the spirit of self-reliance because this is not necessarily a national project, it makes more sense to Bangwaketse than any other ethnic group. I believe that given our district's huge population, we can do it without any external help,' he said.