26 Mar 2023

Botswana has signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) to host secretariat of the Africa Zone VI Regional Anti-Doping Organisation (RADO).

Speaking during the signing ceremony on Thursday, the Minister of Youth, Gender, Sport and Culture, Tumiso Rakgare, hailed the occasion as a critical milestone in the promotion of clean sport in Botswana and the region.

“The signing of this MoA symbolises the commitment by Botswana in supporting the Africa Zone VI RADO to have a permanent home. We have vested interest in the success of the Africa Zone VI RADO as its success will equally be the success of this country because we can leverage the presence of the office to consolidate our national anti-doping progamme,” he said.

Rakgare said Botswana had already benefitted from the activities and programmes of the regional body in doping control testing as well as the implementation of education and awareness projects.

He said signing of the agreement signaled commitment by the country to its own national anti-doping programme through the development of a National Anti-Doping Organisation (NADO), a draft of which would soon be ready for discussion by stakeholders.

Rakgare said Botswana was not immune to challenges of sport integrity caused by doping as in the past, it had its own athletes committing anti-doping violations, which then called for the country and the region to double their efforts in ensuring that such unfortunate incidents did not repeat.

He said this would also ensure protection of the abundant talent that the country had.

“It’s our responsibility to help them to stay clean and ensure they uphold good reputation of the country in the international sporting arena,” he said.

Rakgare also urged established athletes to continue being examples to upcoming ones, something he said they could achieve by avoiding performance enhancing drugs.

“An athlete is responsible for whatever is found in their body when tested, so they should be very careful of what they consume,” he said.

He said commitment of athletes to stay clean would also augment the commitment of government to promote clean sport.

He, however, said Botswana was proud that majority of its athletes have competed and won fairly.

For his part, the Africa Zone VI RADO vice chairperson, Fahmy Galant, said they had no doubt that Botswana and other regional members would continue to benefit from the programme and projects run by the Africa Zone VI RADO.

He said the office would help regional countries achieve more success than if they went it alone, adding the regional office still had a long way to go in ensuring clean sport by all member countries.

“Statistics show that in our region, the number of Anti-Doping Rule Violation in terms of positive doping control test results is on the rise. This shows that indeed we still have a lot of work to do in terms of educating athletes and undertaking a robust doping control testing programme,” he said.

Galant said this then stressed the importance of establishing an office in Botswana.

He indicated that WADA had also expressed its unwavering support for the establishment of a NADO in Botswana by providing technical assistance and capacity building.

Galant said provision of a permanent home for African Zone VI RADO would therefore add great value and motivation to these regional collaborations and partnership efforts.

In his remarks, the Africa Zone VI RADO secretary general, Andrew Kamanga said regional offices were established to help mostly the less developed countries comply with anti-doping standards.

He said such compliance to set standards would help level the playing field and ensure that competitions were fair, without anybody gaining unfair advantage by use of banned substances.

Africa Zone VI RADO members are Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Ghana, who applied for special inclusion in the region.  ENDS