20 Mar 2019

Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development has requested an approval of its proposed budget of P992.4 million for the 2019/20 financial year.

When presenting the proposals on March 19,  Assistant Minister Dikgang Makgalemele, stated that P949.2 million represented the recurrent budget while the development budget stood at P43.2 million.

Giving a breakdown of the recurrent budget, Mr Makgalemele indicated that P676.7 million would be for the ministry headquarters, whereas the Botswana National Archives and Records Services, and the Department of National Service and Internship would get P25.9 million and P246.5 million respectively.

On the development budget, he pointed out that P8.5 million  would go towards strengthening of the ministry’s operations and that P30 million would provide for the development of cultural infrastructure and associated programmes.

On the ministry’s performance during the 2018/19 financial year, Mr Makgalemele stated that they were allocated P943.6 million under the recurrent budget, adding that P818.1 million of the amount had since been spent.

Under the development budget, he said the ministry was allocated P61.6 and P58.9 million had already been utilised.

On other issues, Mr Makgalemele said the country’s performance in sport had been impressive during the year under review as Batswana athletes had excelled at regional, continental and world level competitions, bringing home a total of 354 medals from various sporting competitions.

He said in addition to the sterling performance, the country had successfully hosted several high quality international sporting events.

Regarding arts and culture, he said 51 applicants had benefited through the Arts and Culture Grant to implement initiatives such as cultural festivals, cultural exchanges and capacity building, amongst others.

He explained that the grant provided financial assistance towards the preservation, development and promotion of the arts and culture sector.

On national archives, the assistant minister noted that a total of 32 new collections and 996 archival items from private donations were acquired during the period under review.

As for entrepreneurship development, he said the ministry continued to assist the youth-owned businesses in such areas as financing, capacity building, market access as well as marketing and outreach. ENDS