06 Dec 2016

President Lt Gen. Dr Seretse Khama Ian Khama says participation in sports competitions has many socio-economic benefits, while further enhancing Botswana’s national unity and pride.

Therefore he said government shall continue to fund the promotion of sport excellence and a strong sporting culture for its people.

Delivering the State-of-the-Nation Address on Monday (December 5), he  said the 4th edition of Botswana Games was hosted in December 2015 at Francistown where at the Games, 13 sporting codes, with a total of 2 069 athletes from all the 16 Districts participated.

President Khama said since its inaugural meeting in 2007, the Games had been a vehicle for identifying and nurturing talent from young age and for building capacity for activities.

He said on the international stage they had seen Botswana rise from being a sporting unknown to a global player.

President Khama stated that Botswana athletes continued to raise the nation’s flag high in various international competitions adding that a total of 12 Olympian and 1 Para-Olympian athletes qualified to compete in Rio this year.

He said this record number represented a 150 per cent increase over the previous 2012 games adding that in July 2017 Botswana shall host the Netball World Youth Cup.

To further improve participation in sport, he said Government had facilitated the development of open air gyms and the improvement of Community Sport Fields with Three such gyms having been completed in Gaborone and Francistown and are now open to the public, while improvements of community sport fields are being carried out at nine centres.

He further encouraged all Batswana to take part in the National Fitness exercise, which are scheduled for the second week of every month.

President Khama said the President’s Day Competitions serve to promote the diverse cultural traditions of the country as the programme currently has 30 major visual and performing arts categories with 27 sub categories.

He highlighted that in 2016/17 financial year, 18 971 participated in the Competitions as compared to 14 739 in 2015/16.

He said it is government’s policy to ensure that these programmes play a dual role of promoting local culture and heritage while generating income for artists. ENDS