Malawi wins bid to host Africa Olympics Committees meeting 

Malawi has won the bid to host a meeting for  Secretary Generals of Association of National Olympic Committees in Africa (ANOCA) in October next year after beating Tunisia in a decisive vote in Cape Verde.

Administration Manager  for Malawi Olympic Committee (MOC) Naomi Chinatu, who represented the association at this year’s meeting in Cape Verde on October 15 said Malawi beat Tunisia 21 to 19 after a third round of voting.

“Malawi NOC won the bid to host next edition of Secretaries General Meeting in 2018 after beating Tunisia NOC after Malawi tied with Tunisia 25 votes each in the first round and in second round both countries got 15 votes each and in the third round Malawi won with 21 against 19 votes,” Chinatu said.

Seven countries, Botswana, Congo, Ethiopia, Gambia, Togo, Tunisia and Malawi were shortlisted to bid for hosting the 2018 meeting but Botswana and Togo withdrew opting to bid for the 2019 meeting while the other countries fell off in the preliminary round of voting.

Chinatu said Malawi’s successful bid, which she presented, would boost Malawi’s image as a tourism destination.

“It’s great that Malawi won the bid because it will improve the visibility of MOC among other African National Olympic Committees while Malawi will benefit in terms of tourism as  over 100 delegate expected to come would need to visit some parts of the country,” she said.

Apart from that she said international organisations, who are partners of host countries for 2019 Youth Games in Brazil and 2020 Olympic Games in Japan, would attend the meeting to promote the games to delegates from 54-member countries.

“Apart the NOC delegations next event hosting countries also do attend the seminar and we are sure next year we shall receive delegation from Argentina where the Youth Olympic Games will be hosted in 2019 and Japan where the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games,” she said.

The Secretary Generals’ meeting is fully funded by ANOCA and Olympic Solidarity but host association is required to provide local transport and the administration manager has since appealed to local companies to assist.

“We need partners as it was the case when we held for the first time ANOCA  in 2006 we partnered with TNM who were our official mobile phone services providers to the delegates,” she said.

Malawi hosted  the first ever ANOCA Secretary General’s  meeting in 2006 after former MOC Secretary General late James Brown Gwaza presented a successful bid.

Meanwhile, Malawi was applauded by ANOCA officials for holding a successful meeting at Ryalls Hotel in Blantyre and Club Makokola at Cape Maclear.

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