Lack of rural, less privileged sports sponsorship worrying: MTC

WINDHOEK, Sept. 16 – MTC has called for the corporate world to play its part in supporting rural sports as currently, companies focus largely on urban sports development.

Joseph Mundjindi, Manager Sponsorship and Promotions at MTC said, “MTC continues its commitment to give back to the community through its corporate social responsibility programme, we have noticed that corporate support for sports have for large part only being concentrated within urban areas, thus leaving the peri-rural areas neglected.”

During the fringes of the Okakarara Trade Fair, MTC supported for the first time the Okakarara Horse Racing Event.

Now MTCs Management has hinted that the possibility to go into the sport as a sponsor is a possibility and the company will go to the drawing board to carry out assessments before coming to any decision.

Over 5000 fans flocked to the Okakarara Horse Racing Event which took place on Saturday, the 9th of September, and MTC had issued sponsorship worth N$90 000: N$55 000 monetary and N$35 000 in-kind towards sporting equipment for jockeys and the umpires.

According to Mundjindi, this practise if not changed as it will lead to skewed sport development, “Which cannot augur well for Namibia as a sporting nation, as it has the potential to deny well deserving youth an opportunity to exhale due to obvious reasons.

He added: “Whilst important that we support sport development whether it is in urban or rural areas, I think the time has come as corporate Namibia that we focus our sport budgets to rural and less privileged communities to create the sense and spirit of oneness, only once we have done away with skewed sport development can we truly and proudly state that we are uplifting our communities and contributing to the socio welfare of all our people irrespective of locality.”

Executive Member of the Namibia Horse Racing Association (NHRA) Benjamin Itandua Kasuto said , “Horse-racing as a sport code has been underfunded in the past and the sponsorship from MTC is invaluable and highly appreciated.”

MTC has been part of the Okakarara Trade Fair since its inception and the horse-racing event this year was added as an additional fun element to the fair.

“We applaud the organisers for adding this famous sport event within the proceeding of the Okakarara Trade Fair” mentioned Mundjindi. We concur that horse-racing is one of the popular event and is normally enjoyed by the majority of Namibians and ought to see it grow to lofty heights,” concluded Mundjindi. – NDN Staffer