Government through the Ministry of Youth Empowerment Sport and Culture Development has directed Botswana National Sport Commission (BNSC) to reprioritise spending.
As a result, non-critical events, activities and programmes have been deferred to the next financial year of 2021/2022.
According to the BNSC Caretaker Chief Executive, Tuelo Serufho, they have been affected by this exercise to the extent that it will not receive the balance of its grant in the current financial year.
He said this is the exception of requests for unavoidable costs such as those for rentals, salaries and utilities.
“We therefore inform all National Sport Associations that the commission will not be able to honour any request in March even if the NAS has a positive balance. This is due to the outbreak of Covid-19 and there is slow economic performance. We submitted a list of activities for national teams especially for international events and we are waiting for the response,” said Serufho.
Meanwhile, Botswana Athletics Association’s Oabona Theetso said they had to cancel their Annual General Meeting which was to be held this Saturday after receiving this communication.
He said the suspension of sporting activities by the government is also going to affect their preparations for the Olympics and the World Junior Championship which are to be held in August.
“These are tough times for sport. Athletes are in the camp and this has disrupted their preparations for the qualifiers. We would not be surprised if we are told to release them from the camp because they are there doing nothing,” said Theetso
