It is now official: Botswana has failed to attract visitors coming to the FIFA World cup tournament in South Africa and is, therefore, likely to reap fleas and lice from the tournament.
Now government Ministers are looking for a convenient scapegoat.
They are blaming South Africa for appropriating the entire show to themselves. This is shameful.
Do we have to behave like students who, after failing to prepare for the examinations, accuse the teacher for setting an examination based on material that was never covered in class? The truth is that South Africa won the right to host the FIFA 2010 World cup show piece on the back of serious lobbying and super planning. Whether this right extended to other African states or whether other African states assisted South Africa in its bid should not be an issue because the right to host the FIFA 2010 World cup was awarded to South Africa, alone.
South Africa has successfully hosted other major sport events and they used this as their trump card. The use of ‘Africa’ was merely an appeal for sympathy and if Botswana was gullible to buy into this ‘African time’ rallying cry, our gullibility has nothing to do with South Africa and we should not blame them for our inability to convince visitors to come and stay with us.
It was incumbent upon African states to position themselves better to be able to reap any benefits there from. The fact that Botswana would be getting only lice from the World Cup extravaganza is not a problem for South Africa but is our problem. Botswana was never to host the tournament jointly with South Africa. Why would we expect to benefit when we did not make any serious efforts to lure visitors to our country? Many times we get invited to parties but always choose to arrive late. From what Ministers Mokaila and Kgathi are reported to have said in their attempt to absolve the government from this humiliation, I am beginning to suspect that the government of Botswana erroneously thought that the benefits from the 2010 FIFA world cup were guaranteed; that South Africa would share the 2010 world cup business with us or was going to share the proceeds from the tournament with its laggard neighbours, particularly Botswana.
Did we expect South Africa to chase away some visitors so that they stayed in Botswana? The 2010 World Cup show piece presented Africa and Southern Africa in particular with great opportunities and it was up to our government to put in motion strategies to seize the opportunity. Remember that ‘it is not by watching a newly-wed wife that she is going to become pregnant’. The government of Botswana constituted the 2010 Task Force to market Botswana in respect of the FIFA 2010 World cup tournament and for a very long time they having been giving the nation assurances that things were under control and that Botswana was in for a big windfall. Now the very same people are distancing themselves from anything to do with Botswana’s unpreparedness to tap into the tournament.
My take is that these people should be taken to task and explain where things went wrong. If they cannot give a convincing explanation, a Commission of inquiry should be set up to investigate this embarrassing mess. Obviously it seems stupid to expect the government to probe itself but we really need to get to the bottom of this national disgrace and this merit a review and full blown analysis of what really happened.
If the government is not concerned and therefore not interested in investigating circumstances that led to this scandal, I suggest that independent institutions like Botswana Confederation of Commerce, Industry and Manpower (BOCCIM) or the sleeping giant that is the Botswana Tourism Organization should take it upon themselves to uncover the causes of our failure to get anything from the FIFA World cup tournament. The findings could then be used as lessons for the future and help us avoid committing the same blunders in the future. In my essay titled ‘Botswana is no longer an attractive destination’ (Sunday Standard, April 4-10, 2010) I partially discussed this issue and highlighted that ‘when other head of states are busy aggressively marketing their countries for the 2010 world cup likely windfall, our president is busy marketing himself to people in the rural areas in a way that shows the extent to which he always gets his priorities wrong’. The President spent inordinate time spinning aimlessly from Mosu to Mashatu to Okavango to Otse to Damuchujenaa threatening to increase the alcohol levy and, of course, issuing countless deportation orders when he should have been positioning the country to compete with the best, while his cabinet ministers spend theirs shouting at private media houses and making threats of war.
Our leaders need to show some seriousness and stop blaming their own shadows for poor decision making. May be we need to ask these questions: ‘did Botswana devise any marketing strategy in respect of the FIFA 2010 World Cup tournament hosted by South Africa with a view to maximizing potential benefits therein?’ What were our targets and which segment of visitors did we really want to ambush so that they lodged in our country?’ My suspicion is that the government was using a ‘per chance’ strategy similar to betting. Really where do our priorities lie?
A big part of the problem is that Botswana is too personalized and crafted on Khama’s preferences and pronouncements. Since president Khama has never spoken in support of Botswana efforts to reap any benefits from the 2010 World cup tournament, government officials have been literally hamstrung to market Botswana in respect of the tournament. The present mode of operation is that government officials must wait for Khama to make a statement before they can spring into action on any matter. He alone determines what has to be done in relation to anything. In the Bible it is written ‘who can speak and have it happen if the Lord has not decreed it?’ (Lamentations 3:37). Botswana has changed considerably and has become unfriendly to both locals and visitors. In order to have attracted World cup-bound visitors, we needed an aggressive, well organized and well resourced marketing strategy to present Botswana as a destination of choice in Southern Africa.
Travellers are a fickle lot and need assurances that they shall be safe even if their home countries know no peace. We needed to convince people that Botswana is the place to be irrespective of recent developments such as alleged extra judicial killings and unprecedented numbers of deportation orders that have left Botswana with a battered image. Thus, it was ridiculous for government to argue that World Cup bound teams demanded exorbitant appearance fees to play friendly matches with the local national team. This is ludicrous because if Botswana does not spend handsomely to market itself, it certainly will remain in the wilderness.
For the country to get the requisite exposure, we need to spend more. After all if we can use public funds to finance President Khama’s friends to accompany him on his official and private trips, we should be able to finance well thought out activities that have the potential to enhance our identity. ‘Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly’ (2 Corinthians 9:6). The worst part of this tragic planning by our government has been its inability to at least retain higher than usual local consumption generated by the 2010 World cup euphoria. Our government failed to come up with contingency measures soon after realizing that we have lost out on opportunities associated with the tournament. What eventually came out was a double tragedy in that Botswana failed to get a thing from the tournament’s spin offs and on top of that, many Batswana travelled to South Africa to be part of the euphoria and in so doing, they somewhat repatriated considerable income generated by the world cup excitement.
The government in collaboration with the private sector should have tried to keep hold of local excitement and craze and ensure that people do not cross to South Africa in large numbers mainly due to being starved of the excitement. A majority of Batswana who travelled to South Africa to be part of the historic event did not have match tickets as such but merely watched the games in public viewing areas. I trust that if we had such facilities as fan parks in Gaborone, many of us wouldn’t have gone to watch the opening games in public viewing areas in South Africa. But true to the bourgeoisie attitude, the opening games were screened at the Gaborone International Convention Center where attendance was strictly by invitation, thus effectively disowning a majority and forcing them to jam into sweat-infested bars or peep into other people’s living rooms for unauthorised peeks. And now some of our government ministers, the very people who have been lying loudly that Botswana was ready and was going to benefit handsomely from the 2010 world cup soccer spectacular are apportioning blame on South Africa.
South Africa did not instruct anybody to shun Botswana but it is our government that did not do its homework to position the country for a likely windfall. The executives behaved as if they never knew that South Africa would be hosting the FIFA World cup tournament in 2010.
There is just too much complacency that is often laced with unlimited deceit.
