28 Aug 2016

Assistant minister of Education and Skills Development, Moiseraele Goya has commended Botswana for winning the Confederation of School Sport Associations of Southern Africa (COSSASA) 2016 Ball Games played in Gaborone last week.

Botswana secured gold medals in football and volleyball, among others, to win the three-day competition which had pitted them against Zimbabwe, Namibia and Lesotho.

Goya said Botswana deserved to win the competition as the country’s teams fought hard.

“Indeed we competed as a country. We did not just honour the games. That is why we won that big trophy,” Goya said at the farewell dinner held at Masa Centre on Friday.

He added that the trophy was bound to remain in Botswana saying “in our tradition, we have a saying that ‘noga ga e latelelwe mosimeng’. So there was no way that we were going to allow the Zimbabweans, Basotho and Namibians to go away with this trophy. We spoke to our boys and girls that this was an opportunity for us as a country.”

He thanked the COSSASA leadership for giving Botswana the opportunity to host the games on the year the country is celebrating its 50th Independence anniversary.

However, he expressed concern at the low spectator turn-out at the games, and asked for improvement in marketing of the competition.

“We should create some kind of hype and vibe for these activities.I don’t think the games were well publicized especially in Botswana because I know Batswana like sport a lot.

 But when I looked at the turn-out at the closing ceremony something told me that the publicity that was behind these games was not done well,” he said.

COSSASA president, Johnson Maduku said Botswana had hosted a ‘magnificent competition’. 

Maduku added that he was impressed by the performance from Botswana, stating that the country has potential to become a giant in the region.

He added that rotating the games around member states gives countries opportunity to learn from each other and grow sport in the region. ENDS