BNOC In P54m Budget Shortfall
Kabelo Boranabi | Monday June 4, 2018 12:11
However, speaking at the BNOC ordinary general meeting held in Gaborone on Thursday, BNOC chief executive officer, Tuelo Serufho said his organisation can only raise just over P4 million through the International Olympic Committee (IOC) funding and fund raising activities. He added that they expect the government to meet the remaining P54 million deficit.
“We have a reduction of P250, 000 from the government. We are not aware of these changes in the grants we receive. However, we expect the government to meet the remaining P54 million in our budget. It is a huge number, but the current leadership has seen the benefit of sport, in terms of sport tourism amongst other things. So I believe they will help us. We also have Tokyo 2020 (Olympic) games, and that is where most of the money will go,” he said.
Serufho revealed that P46.8 million, which is 79.97% of the budget, would be used for games and programmes while operational activities would take P9 million. The rest of the money would be used in consultancy and recourses mobilisation and assets. BNOC is the custodian of all the Olympic and the Commonwealth games.
BNOC executive committee member, Tshepo Sitale encouraged the federations to lure the private sector into sport. “Let’s continue to lobby stakeholders to invest in sport. Send the message out that sport needs funds. We have a budget with a deficit of P54 million, we intend to reach the amount but we know it is going to be difficult. However, that shows our ambition, of how we intend to achieve the goals we have set,” he said.
At the gathering, the BNOC also washed hands off the harassment of private journalists during the welcome ceremony of the Commonwealth team in April. The Police and security had denied private photojournalists entry into ‘restricted area’ at the Sir Seretse Khama International Airport while the national broadcaster was allowed in. “One thing I want to clarify is that, as the BNOC we had nothing to do with harassment of the media at the welcome ceremony of our Commonwealth games athletes. We had nothing to do with it,” he said.
“We have a good relationship with our media and we intend to continue with the good working relationship.”
Meanwhile, the BNOC will this year celebrate 40 years of existence.