Rakgare, Stakeholders Should Do Better

The Botswana Senior National Women’s Football team The Mares put up a brilliant performance at the just ended COSAFA Women’s Championship in South Africa.

They lost with a very respectable score of 2-1 to world women football powerhouse South Africa. They reached the final after beating Zambia in the semi-finals with a carrot dangled by Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development minister Tumiso Rakgare. Though a welcome move by the minister to pledge P250,000 to the women side, it raises many questions on whether authorities, particularly from government have the will to see sports developing in the country. We challenge the minister and all other authorities to invest money in sports development and not only come to the party when glory is within reach. Women’s football and indeed other sporting codes where women participate have been neglected for a long time. This is despite the fact that they have over the years shown that they can reach greater heights, if only they had the right support system. We further challenge Rakgare to continue with such incentives he announced to The Mares over a phone call. He should also have them in black and white for all other sporting codes as a way of motivating both men and women, and boys and girls to take sport as a career that one may fully dedicate their lives to and eke a living without working elsewhere. We have seen in the past corporates dangle incentives at our athletes. Surely, they have the resources to spare and they will surely commit funds to our sports if authorities and administrators lead the line by investing ahead of all. Corporates want to be associated with stars, so if the government invests in creating stars, businesses will come on board. We further challenge the minister to extend support to those in the creative industry as they continue to wail their wretched life of poverty due to the coronavirus (COVID- 19) restrictions. It is no doubt that the young people and indeed the elderly who fall under his portfolio are currently going through a rough patch. We acknowledge and commend Rakgare and the Ministry for partnering with Limkokwing University for scholarships to the industry and challenge the establishment to forge more partnerships that will contribute to growth of the industry, and indeed the economy of Botswana. COVID-19 has proven difficult for our artists partly because of failure to take advantage of technology and inability to diversify product offers. With the promising leadership the minister is showing, there certainly can be something that can be done. And the industry players know these interventions better. It is time we bring them on board and actually deliver.