Although it is not viable to satisfactorily fund all of Botswana’s sport codes, the Ministry of Youth Sport and Culture (MYSC) has been urged to set up an independent task force to categorise the country’s sport codes. This would ensure the effective allocation of limited financial resources to sport codes according to priority and special needs.
In his opening address at a workshop held Monday in Gaborone, Prince Musonda who is the Head of Sports Commission in Zambia said, “If Botswana harbours ambition of becoming a country that thrives through sports, then categorisation of sport codes is the reasonable thing to do.”
As a suggestion, he said such a model would rank or categorise sport codes into three groups: national sports codes, development sports codes and priority sports codes. “Inadequate resources at government’s disposal mean that there is need to remedy the sports funding headache by categorisation of sport. Categorisation will assist in determining how much financial support each code receives,” he said.
The comprehensive categorisation and rating process would involve numerous interviews with sporting codes to find out, for example, the number of regions in which they are active and their accessibility to the masses. “Sport codes which score the highest marks should receive more funding as this would accelerate ways in which they can develop and meet their national objectives,” he said.
He also cautioned that some sport codes might be dissatisfied with the categorisation process as it would mean less funding for them. However he urged people to look at the bigger picture saying: “Some hard and painful decisions have to be made if Botswana is to be placed among the best on the international sport arena and become a winning sport nation.”
Amongst other things, Musonda encouraged the private organisations to assist government and invest in the various sport codes.