The Botswana National Sport Commission (BNSC) says it will hand over national teams to the Office of the President to ease financial burden on affiliates.
BNSC chairman, Solly Reikeletseng told delegates at last week’s special general meeting that they want government to bear the full funding of the national teams especially when they engage in world competition qualifiers.
He said the government has made it clear that no team shall miss any international engagement.
“It is very difficult to budget for qualifiers because we will never know when you will be out.
Before Shaw Kgathi left the (sports) ministry, the government was working on a cabinet memo that will request that national teams should be funded by the government. We need to resuscitate that cabinet memo to say the moment a team gets into world qualifiers, then the government should take over,” he said.
Reikeletseng also said the commission has decided that all sporting codes have a representative in all school sports associations such as Botswana Integrated Sports Association (BISA) and Botswana Primary Schools Sport Association (BOPSSA).
“It is very critical that every code has a representative in the schools structures because that is where development starts. As the commission, we have to work on a robust plan that will work for everybody in BISA, BOPSSA and the private schools because that is an area that we have to look at otherwise we would not have a feeder system,” he said.
Reikeletseng further said the executive committee continues to effectively implement the BNSC Strategy 2028.
He said they undertook an exercise of ensuring that all affiliates have developed strategies aligned to the commission strategy. “It is important to note that the first four years of the strategy are coming to an end next year.
In the second phase, we expect all the affiliates to have aligned their strategies to the main commission one in a common template to allow consistent reporting by all.”
He further revealed that Women and Sport Botswana (WASBO) is now a fully registered organisation with the Registrar of Societies.
WASBO elected an interim committee which is currently facilitating a process that culminated in the registration of their structure. The committee comprises Million Masumbika of Karate, Charmaine Khupe of Squash, Glenda Mokokwe (football) and Peter Nthele of Tennis.
