Some of the key focus areas that need the minister’s immediate attention include school sport and the pending Sport Act. Senior manager at the Association for International Sport for All (TAFISA), Game Mothibi, believes it is easy to turn the situation around if there are the right personnel in positions. “I am not worried about the minister but people under him and at the BNSC and the BNOC. I am also worried about how sport in my country is using outdated ideologies and do not align to the global sport movement and yet we have people travelling every time for conferences, networking, and courses,” the Germany-based Mothibi said. Some of the responsibilities of the newly created ministry include policy development, implementation and monitoring.
The ministry is also responsible for development programmes, governance, coordination, sport and recreation. The ministry supervises the Botswana National Sport Commission (BNSC) and the Botswana National Olympic Committee (BNOC) amongst others. The Botswana Tennis Association (BTA) president, Oaitse Thipe, said it is a brilliant move by the government to create a new ministry. “The government sees that sport and arts have the potential to generate income for the country, create employment opportunities and help diversify the economy. That is why it was important to unbundle sports and arts from the Ministry of Youth and Gender,” Thipe said.
Thipe said the new minister must be passionate about all sports. He said the minister does not have to have played or administered sport to the highest level, because he/she should listen to NSAs about the direction of sport in the country. “In the short-term, the minister needs to try and see how to assist sport codes with funding, and engage parastatals such as Competition Authority, CIPA, and Botswana Tourism Organisation (BTO), as they benefit from sport. (The minister should) engage the NSAs on review of the BNSC policies and amend the Sport Act to give more power to the NSAs,” he said. Thipe said School Sport has to be budgeted for in the 2025-2026 financial year.
He added that there should be implementation of the Master Plan for land around the National Stadium to make the area more marketable. Volleyball president, Tsoseletso Magang, said the separation of MYSC is a good thing because the ministry had too much on its plate. Magang said there is need for someone who will create an enabling sport environment. “Sport leaders and officials are trained by their respective mother bodies on how to run their sport. They need to be supported, resourced, and engaged to perform their duties and achieve mandates. We need someone who will understand the importance of recreational sport, to support and regulate it to get maximum benefit out of it,” she said. Magang said Botswana sport needs a seasoned leader to unite it so that the development of sport does not take place in silos. “If well resourced, sport can contribute significantly to the 400, 000 jobs. It can also stimulate economic activity through sport events like games, and conferences, amongst others, as we have seen the likes of Diacore Gaborone Marathon and The International Working Group (IWG) on Women and Sport Conference that was hosted in Gaborone in 2018,” Magang said.
The Botswana Table Tennis Association (BTTA) president, Kudzanani Motswagole, said the new ministry is a positive for sport as that means more attention to sports and they hope it will translate to more resources as sport is a modern wheel to transform the economy. “The incoming minister should learn and understand sport issues very fast so that when he/she tackles the challenges, the solutions answer well the sports industry's needs and aspirations.
The Sport Act has been hanging for some time, maybe it is imperative to revisit it, so as to get what incorporates the current trends and developments, which are ever changing so as they increase the lifespan of its relevance,” Motswagole said. Athletics vice president-administration, Oabona Theetso, said they need someone willing to listen and learn, adding that sport does not need a "know-it-all minister".
