Times Of Swaziland: SPORTS ASSOCIATIONS HOPE FOR IMPROVED BUDGET

SPORTS ASSOCIATIONS HOPE FOR IMPROVED BUDGET
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Machawe Fakudze on 24/02/2023 07:30:00


MBABANE – We are hoping for an improved sports budget this year.
These were the sentiments shared by some of the country’s sports associations
ahead of the 2023/22 Budget Speech by the Minister of Finance Neal Rijkenberg
today in Parliament. Sports was allocated over E7 million last year, which was
split to all the associations, with Eswatini Football Association (EFA) getting
E5 million for Sihlangu from the government. The Ministry of Sports, Culture and
Youth Affairs received over E30 million.
EFA Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Frederick Mngomezulu said as an organisation
which was helped by government to subsidise their international expenses such as
travelling expenses for all the national teams, they were anticipating what
would be allocated to them in today’s budget speech.
Anticipating
“We are anticipating the budget speech as you know that we rely on government
for other expenses and we hope that we will get an improved allocation as our
wish this year is to see all our national teams participating in all the
tournaments,” Mngomezulu said. It is worth noting that EFA’s first
assignment this year is to send the national team Sihlangu for the TOTALEnergies
Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) qualifiers against Cape Verde.
Eswatini Olympic and Commonwealth Games Association (EOCGA) CEO Maxwell Jele
said even though they did not rely on government for funding, but as a
stakeholder in sports they were looking for an improved budget for the country
to be able to send athletes to international games, as there were a number of
games lined up this year. Eswatini Cycling Association (ECA) President Zwide
Ndwandwe also shared the same sentiments made by EFA CEO, saying an increased
sports budget would encourage them to improve the sport.
Limited
“We want to send some of our cyclists to high performance facilities in South
Africa this year, but without an improved budget we are limited in executing our
plans well,” he said. Meanwhile, Athletics Eswatini (AE) Public Relations
Officer (PRO) Victor ‘Mavikane’ Dlamini said as a federation with an
interest in sports over the years, they were looking forward to an increased
allocation for sports, as it was difficult to run the associations on a limited
budget.
“It is high time that sports is made an industry as we know that it creates
employment for many, but without the proper funding it would be difficult to
attain that goal,” Dlamini said. He, however, said that they were aware of the
effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic challenges experienced
globally, but were hopeful of an improved budget for sports.