08 Jun 2014

It was never the Ministry of Youth, Sport and Culture’s pronouncement that Gaborone mayor, Haskins Nkaigwa was going to give welcome remarks at the official opening of the just ended Africa Youth Games.

This was said by the the ministry's permanent secretary, Ruth Maphorisa, when responding to a question from the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) member and also Tswapong North MP, Prince Maele during the PAC meeting on June 5.

Tswapong North MP had asked Maphorisa to explain why the mayor was not awarded the protocol he deserved at the official opening of the AYG as he was not included in the programme.

Maele said through his engagement with some sports experts, he learnt that “even the minister was not supposed to give a speech there, but our minister gave a speech.” For this reason, he also wanted to know how the minister got to be included in the programme.

In response, Maphorisa said “these are Olympic Games and are run with the Olympic Games standards, and nothing wrong was done. We did not do any omission.”

As per these standards, she said, the speakers should be the; local chairperson of the local organising committee, Association of National Olympic Committees of Africa (ANOCA) representative and the person doing the official opening. She added that, in terms of the list of speakers, the minister was included as per an agreement between ANOCA and the ministry.

She said the ministry invited the mayor to the AYG official opening, adding that she was not aware that Mr Nkaigwa did not attend the opening because he was not included in the list of speakers. She said she thought that maybe the mayor was somehow engaged.

However, she said the Ministry of Youth, Sport and Culture always invited the mayor to its events, from time to time, but he never attended most of them. For that reason, she said it was also not a surprise, to them, that he never turned up. ENDS