Local sport governing bodies, Botswana National Sport Commission and Botswana National Olympic Committee hostilities have ceased.
The boards of the two organisations have since proposed three models for consideration to government.
Sunday Standard Sport is in position of a leaked document that the BNSC/BNOC drafted for consideration my sport ministry.
This is after the Minster of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development (MYSC), Tumiso Rakgare, aggressively spearheaded the initiative to merge the two sports bodies to work together.
The first model they have proposed is “Total merger”. Under this model, BNSC and BNOC will merge into one organisation, which will be a civil entity. Under this model, the board of the new organisation would be elected by National Sport Associations/Federations.
The new organisation formed will be affiliated to international sport bodies, International Olympic Committee, the commonwealth Games Federation, the association of International Sport for All and Association for National Olympic committees of Africa among others.
Like the BNSC the organisation will be funded and report to government through MYSC. The proposed name is Botswana Sport Confederation and Olympic Committee (BOSCOC).
The second model proposed is the Dual Structures, Single membership Body, under this model both BNSC and BNOC would continue to exist separately. Nevertheless, the mandates and responsibilities of the two entities would be revised quite significantly.
The BNSC will be responsible sport and recreation at all levels and their policy formulation. It will also be responsible for resource appropriation including to NSAs and National Recreation Federations (NRFs) on advice of the BOSCOC.
It will also be mandated for monitoring and evaluation as well, facility development and management. National Sports awards and Sport hall of Fame will also be among the responsibilities of BNSC.
Unlike in the current set up BNSC would have no sporting codes affiliated to it but will only keep register of those that meet funding criteria. “the BNSC would be the body through which government interacts with sport and recreation bodies and conversely, the BOSCOC would have no direct reporting line to government.
National sporting bodies will and national recreation bodies will all afflicted to BOSCOC. The BOSCOC will also oversee all sport and recreation development. It will also affiliate to international multi-sport bodies and thus affiliate Botswana ‘s competition at events under auspices. BOSCOC will be responsible for capacity development within sport and recreation (coaches, administrators, technical officials, sport science and medicine personnel.
The last proposed model is the Dual Structures, Separate Affiliations. According to this model BNSC and BNOC would continue to exist separately, with modified mandates, roles and responsibilities.
The BNSC would be responsible for Sport and recreation regulation at all levels, sport and recreation policy formulation, resource appropriation, facilitation of recreational activities, monitoring and evaluation as well as audit of sport and recreation entities. It will also be responsible for national sports awards and sport hall of fame.
On the other hand, BOSCOC will have all sport associations affiliated to it, oversee development for all organised sports, and be responsibly for capacity development within sport.
The Ministry is yet to make a conclusive decision on which model to take or on how they structure will look like. According to some sport officials who talked to this publication on condition of anonymity the merger could have long been done by the boards of the two organisations but their management have been against the move because they feared for their jobs and positions.
Those who are against the merging reason that there is need for legislation to change to accommodate the merge or any model. they reason that reporting go government is not an issue like in the current set up where the problem with the two was duplication of roles.
It was found that in the current set up there are overlapping roles and responsibilities which in some instances it was difficult for the ministry determine who between BNSC and BNOC to hold accountable.
