The country’s sport governing body, Botswana National Sport Commission (BNSC) has been grilled over the awarding of tenders, especially the one given to Red Pepper PRC which was paid P14 as well an additional P300 000 to other companies that were engaged in the BOT50 jubilee celebrations
Accounting officers, CEO Falcon Sedimo and his Finance Manager Kabelo Mmono, were at pains to explain to the Chairman of Parliamentary Committee on Statutory Bodies and State Enterprises Guma Moyo why procedures were not followed when they appeared before him last Wednesday.
It was observed that the findings of the internal audit revealed that proper channels were not followed. “Your internal audit shows that you did not follow procurement procedures and procurement is an issue at BNSC,” the Tati East MP Moyo told the two.
In some instances there were no tender process carried out for supply of over P200 000 worth goods and without quotations from suppliers.
During the BNSC interrogation, the burning issue was the P14 million paid to Red Pepper PRC by the sport governing body. Red Pepper was engaged by BOT50 organisers to do a documentary depicting the progress of Botswana from 1966 to 2016.
Moyo pinned down BNSC on what role they performed during the 50th gold jubilee independence celebrations and financing by government.
Sedimo said they were given P14 million by government to pay the production company and P3 000 million to foot the bill of other companies.
When asked whether there was tender for the production company, both Sedimo and Mmono could not confirm to the committee.
“Your role was just to disburse the money?” asked Moyo. “We acted on instructions from the ministry when to pay. There were directives from the ministry with supporting documentation,” Sedimo replied.
Guma instructed the BNSC accounting officers to bring proof of tender for Red Pepper and the services they provided.
Still with the BNSC interrogation, Falcon Sedimo revealed that the Vision 2028 first phase, of four years, has seen a tremendous success in terms of growth and achievement. He told the committee that the first Olympic medal the country has ever won came in in 2012 London Summer Olympics. Though success were noticed Sedimo acknowledged that more work needed to done in order to achieve more.
He said the other thing that is hindering development was lack of funds. He said despite the BNSC asking for more money the government was unable to meet their budgetary demands because of financial constrains.
“Since 2012 we have been getting P54 million from government despite the fact that we have requested for more. We once requested for over P100 million but still got P54 million,” explained Sedimo. He also explained that they managed to generate P37 million from sponsors in the past financial year.
Member of the committee Gilbert Mangole also wanted to know the impact of the recent impasse in football that led to some games not taking place which could result in sponsors shying away from funding sport”.
“Though it is not quantified we can say it has a negative impact on the companies coming forward,” explained Sedimo. He said the other thing that is hindering more sponsors from supporting sport is the issue of tax rebates.
