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Ellina Mhlanga
Senior Sports Reporter
AFRICAN Union Sports Council Region Five chief executive Stanley Mutoya has said the regional Youth Games held every two years should not be viewed as an event but part of development. The past two years have not been easy for the regional body due to the Covid-19 pandemic but they have managed to come up with a number of initiatives to keep sport alive.
They finally managed to stage the rescheduled 2020 edition of the AUSC Region Five Youth Games last December in Maseru, Lesotho. Mutoya said they are happy with how the Games in Lesotho went despite challenges due to the prevailing environment that resulted in the delay of refurbishment of some of the facilities.
With travel restrictions and the pandemic, it meant delays in getting some of the imported equipment for the refurbishments.
And Mutoya paid tribute to the Government of Lesotho for the huge investment they made to ensure the Games were a success.
“We were very happy with the successes that we registered. For me what was very important was the Government of Lesotho, even under these very highly demanding challenges, setting aside an amount of M238 million, which is like US$23 million towards the hosting of these Games, under these conditions, it’s a huge investment by the Government.
“And we are happy, even as we reflect that we were able to refurbish the swimming pool. This pool had not been used for the last 10 years and because of the Region Five Youth Games, we have refurbished it. It can now host any international FINA competition right now.
“Apart from that the road, a 13km stretch road that joins this pool, this High Altitude Centre to the rest of Maseru was upgraded. It is now an access road, it has changed lives of people in that vicinity who were unable to use it because that road was unpassable.
“But because of the Region Five Games it has changed not just the sporting terrain but even the society around the high altitude centre.”
Among the facilities that were refurbished is the athletics track to a Class B World Athletics standard, the University of Lesotho and the Lesotho College of Education.
A number of the locals were trained as technical officials in almost all the 11 sport codes that were on the programme.
Mutoya said they seek to ensure that the Games leave a legacy with long-term benefits for the hosting nations.
The AUSC Region Five chief executive said there are a number of lessons that were drawn from the Games in Lesotho, which will also be key for the Malawi and other future editions.
“We still want to implore Governments to consider planning for these Games way in advance and reduce the capital expenditure out of just one fiscal year because that will be very heavy, especially when we now have other burdens, like we now had Covid-19.
“So we implore countries such as Mozambique, who are hosting 2024, and Namibia, who are hosting 2026, to start now preparing, especially around infrastructure refurbishment, to ensure that we don’t take the Games as an event but they become part of development of our member countries.
“We should not settle for mediocrity. Sometimes people say it’s expensive to do this, to do that. But this is a platform where we are creating our athletes not to have a culture shock when they get to the international stage.
“We should not have shortcuts to procedures. To be quite honest, the reason why we registered Covid-19 positive cases in Lesotho was because some of our countries did not adhere to the bubble to bubble concept.
“We expected athletes to have tested, PCR tests, three days before they got into a 14-day camp and during the camp for those 14 days we expected them to be tested every 72 hours but very few countries did that.
“Some countries thought it was a cost, it was an expense, it was inconveniencing and so on. They decided to make shortcuts and we then saw what happened in Lesotho. Now we were beginning to test people and cases were emerging.
“I need to emphasise, let’s stick to regulations and rules. Let us not cut corners when it comes to procedures, especially where it concerns the lives and livelihoods of our athletes and our people,” said Mutoya.
He added that there is every need for the sport industry to be given priority in terms of corporate partnerships and broadcasting.
With the Games every two years, the postponement meant they were now preparing for two editions of the Games, the delayed 2020 edition in Lesotho and the 2022 edition to be staged in Malawi. Mutoya said Malawi have made a lot of progress in their preparations for this year’s edition of the Games with the handover of the Games facilities expected to take place by August.
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