06 Jul 2016

Funds distribution by Botswana National Sports Commission (BNSC) is dependent on priorities for the national sports association and the amount of subvention received from government.

This was said by the Minister of Youth, Sport and Culture Mr Thapelo Olopeng when responding to a question in Parliament on Tuesday.

He said the national sport associations are expected to focus their budget mainly on grassroots sport development programmes and involvement in competitions locally and internationally.

Mr Olopeng said that it depends on how sport was spread across the country, presentation of annual returns, organisation of national championships, submission of audit report, ranking in Africa and the world including its involvement with other development structures like Botswana Integrated Sports Association (BISA) and Botswana Primary Sports Association (BOPSA).

He said football received the largest share of the budget due to its high administration costs, national appeal and spectral distribution.

Minister Olopeng said sport codes that received the smallest share were hockey, squash, horse racing, wrestling, handball, parachute and taekwondo as they were still developing sports codes with participation level relatively low. 

MP for Gaborone North, Mr Haskins Nkaigwa wanted to know what criteria was being used by the BNSC to distribute the sports budget to affiliated national sports associations. 

Mr Nkaigwa also wanted to know which associations received the largest and those that received the smallest share. ENDS