P6 million for Olympics, Africa Games
The government has set aside P6 million for the upcoming Paris 2024 Olympic Games and Africa Games. National Sporting Associations (NSAs) that will benefit from the funding are those under the Olympic programme.
Speaking during the Botswana National Sport Commission (BNSC) Annual General Assembly held over the weekend, the chief executive officer (CEO), Tuelo Serufho said they currently have P6 million, which will be used to prepare for both the Africa Games and Paris 2024 Olympic Games. He said the funds are not enough hence they have engaged the Ministry of Youth, Gender, Sport and Culture (MYSC) for an increase.
“We have requested the ministry for the increase to be done during the current financial year. We cannot have it in the next financial year because it would be too late for the preparations,” he said.
In his response, the Botswana Karate Association (BOKA) president, Mpho Bakwadi said P6 million is too little to prepare for the games of that magnitude.
“This figure is an indication that sport is just sport in this country and as we speak, preparations have not even started. Africa Games are around the corner, which is in March. As karate, we do not even know if we are part of the selected NSAs or not,” Bakwadi argued.
Serufho informed Bakwadi that karate is not an Olympic sport and that means they are not included in the arrangement.
The Botswana Rugby Union (BRU) secretary-general, Boitshoko Tsiane said the information that they were getting from the BNSC was different from that of Botswana National Olympic Committee (BNOC). He said the BNOC informed the delegates during their AGA last weekend that preparations for the games have not started due to lack of funding. He said they do not want to see the two organisations pulling in different directions.
For her part, the Squash and Rackets Association (BSRA) secretary-general, Charmaine Koveya said with enough funding, the NSAs could excel. She explained that the Squash Federation of Africa has committed to construct two modern courts in Accra. Sporting codes that have been considered for Paris 2024 games are athletics, boxing, beach volleyball, swimming, weightlifting, taekwando and women football (The Mares). However, The Mares are out after being knocked out during the qualification stage.
Only athletics has qualified five athletes for the Olympics while the boxing team attended their first Olympic qualifier event titled African Boxing Road to Paris held in Dakar, Senegal in September and failed to qualify. The next qualification event for boxing would be the world qualification event, which takes place in Busto Arsizio, Italy in February. In weightlifting, there is one athlete attempting qualification for Paris 2024, Alphius Bokang Kagiso in the 109Kg category.
Kagiso competed in Bogota, Colombia at the Weightlifting World Championships held in December 2022, which were the first qualifiers, and got position seven with a total of 281kg in category C and ranked 24th out of 27 including category A. He then competed at the African senior Weightlifting Championships in Tunisia in May 2023, and got position four with a total of 280kg. His third qualification attempt competition was the Weightlifting Commonwealth Senior Championships in India in July, where he got position four with a total of 275kg. Kagiso’s fourth Paris 2024 qualification attempt was at the World Weightlifting Championship in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia that was held in September and did not qualify.