Last weekend, the Botswana Netball Association (BONA) president Malebo Raditladi-Nkgakile and three other members, Seipei Gaelisiwe (vice president-project and events), Masego Serumola (sport development officer), and Mokeresete Mokeresete (public relations officer), were deposed.
The Botswana Karate Association (BOKA) affiliates also teamed up to remove their president, Tshepho Bathai and his committee members, who were forced to approach the Lobatse High Court for redress. The matter is still ongoing.
The Botswana Chess Federation (BCF) executive committee survived a motion of no confidence after clubs attempted to remove them from office. Efforts were made to remove the Botswana Football League office bearers, while there are challenges at swimming, volleyball and badminton, amongst others.
The Botswana National Sport Commission (BNSC) CEO, Tuelo Serufho told MmegiSport that they are concerned about what is happening at some sport associations. “Of course, we must hasten to state that good governance must take precedence. Our challenge is that the current BNSC Act does not empower us, or even the National Dispute Resolution and Appeals Committees to deal with matters at the NSAs. It is for that reason that we are waiting with great anticipation for the enactment of a new BNSC Act this winter,” Serufho said.
He said, meanwhile, the BNSC remains limited to just mediation and counselling, as at the end of the day, only the NSA can make the decisions. Senior lecturer in the Department of Sport Science at the University of Botswana, Professor Tshepang Tshube believes there are multiple factors that contribute to the wrangles.
“One of the reasons for infightings is that associations fail to attract top notch leadership, people with knowledge skills, have good corporate background and high ethical standards. Associations in Botswana fail to attract such individuals and people who tend to run the organisations do not have the technical expertise required to run such big organisations,” he said. Tshube said the second reason is that sport associations do not have strong institutions and guidelines on how they should function.
He said what ends up happening are that strong men and strong women end up controlling what happens in the association.
“As an example, when was the last time someone completely new at Botswana Athletics Association (BAA) vying for president? It has always been Moses Bantsi, Paphane Botlhale or Thari Mooketsi for practically 40 years.
It is because they are unable to attract corporate like individuals in the executive committee,” he said. Tshube said he could tell that even the newly introduced BAA Hosting Guidelines document was just drafted, it has no depth and things just run haphazardly. Regarding the powers of BNSC, Tshube said recently sport has become clouded as it is difficult to draw a line between BNSC, sports federations and the Ministry of Youth, Sport, Gender and Culture (MYSC). “It is kind of blurry. You remember years ago when Shaw Kgathi was Sports Minister, Kitso Kemoeng was BNSC chief executive officer (CEO), BNSC board and federations, you could draw a line between those,” he said.
He said the Botswana Football Association (BFA) has some autonomy but sometimes they can even arm-twist the BNSC or the Ministry. He said there is need to go back to strong institutions so that they can function because at the moment it is all about who is stronger or who has more money.
