The much awaited African Nations Championship kicks off tomorrow with the opening ceremony and first match at Amahoro stadium. Organisers are keen to have a very successful tournament.

The New Times’ Collins Mwai caught up with the Minister for Sports and Culture, Julianne Uwacu who spoke about readiness, expected impact of CHAN 2016, among others.

Below are excerpts:

Last week, the government announced a visa waiver for all African Passport holders coming into the country for the African Nations Championship (CHAN). What informed the decision?

The spirit behind this is far broader, it goes beyond just CHAN 2016. A few years ago, Rwanda took the decision to remove initial visa application for African passport holders and issue them on arrival. That was to open Rwanda to the world. For CHAN, we are expecting a big number of fans who will be coming to support their teams. We are trying to remove barriers that could hinder them from coming to be part of this. Once they are here, they will spend money which is more than the visa fees.

In organising of the tournament, there have been numerous services outsourced to members of the private sector, what has been your experience working with them?

Our vision as a country is to have a robust private sector which can lead the economy. We cannot achieve this unless we work hand in hand with the businesses. For CHAN, we worked with the Private Sector Federation from the beginning, all the hotels accommodating guests, transport companies and other services are all outsourced from the private sector. We couldn’t say we are ready if the private sector is not ready. We are happy in the way that the general public views the tournament as an opportunity for them, not only as a government event, it is for all Rwandans across all sectors.

The biggest beneficiaries from the championship will not be the large businesses; it will be the small and medium scale enterprises. It will be an opportunity for them. We have, in partnership with the private sector, organised side events where they can exhibit and showcase their products. We are making sure that people arrive early at the stadium and leave late; there will be an opportunity for providers of food and drinks as well as our entertainers and artists.

It is an event for the whole region, logistics business, including airlines will also cash in.

The government has spent about Rwf16 billion in the organisation of the tournament; do you have a plan on how to ensure a return on investment?

Hosting CHAN, like other big tournaments, requires large investments by a country. There are two parts of the investment; a huge chunk goes to infrastructure development. These will help us develop the sport after the tournament. The infrastructure development bit fall under the government’s seven year programme that seeks to improve sports in the country by availing facilities not only in Kigali but even in other cities. The investment in infrastructure has long term benefits.

The soft expenditures in hosting the tournament are in accommodation, transport and provision of services to delegations during their time in Rwanda. This cost about Rwf 2 billion which is quite practical. While they are here, they will require to be taken care of considering that when our team is also out of the country they are well taken care of.

CHAN is the second biggest football championship in the continent, after African Cup of Nations, does the government have plans of bidding for the ultimate continental championship?

Before CHAN we hosted the Under 23 and Under 17 tournaments where we gained experience and confidence to host such tournaments. All this gave confidence to CAF to allow us to host the tournament. After that we can then consider hosting African Cup of Nations.

Since we are hosting the second biggest tournament on the continent, our next step should be to host African Cup of Nations. To do this, there will be different levels of decisions to be taken on our side as a government and from African Confederation of Football. The way we are working with them, the success of this tournament and the achievement of successfully hosting previous tournaments will be among the factors to be considered when deciding on other tournaments to be hosted here.

What impact do you think the Championship will have on local football?

When the matches are going on, the world will be watching African football, it will be the ideal opportunity for our players to show their abilities. Agents for big teams will be scouting for players during the tournament, so this presents a great opportunity not only for Rwandan players but for all participating African players.

In addition, when our national team plays against bigger African teams, it will be an opportunity for them to gauge themselves against bigger teams which will lead to improvement.

How ready is the national team?

All what we have been doing to host the tournament can be sufficient and enough, but if we do not do enough to prepare our national team it would be a disservice to ourselves as the hosts. That is why we took time to identify what we needed to be ready for CHAN. We would like to participate fully in the tournament and fair well. To do that we organised different friendly matches and training camps within and outside the country. We are prepared tactically, mentally and technically.

How does the tournament fit in the government’s plans of making Rwanda a key a regional host for events and conferences?

Our policy for socio-economic transformation is largely based on the private sector that should provide high quality services. The capacity we had, say five years ago, is not the same one we have today, we have greatly improved but we are not where we set out to be. That is why we are trying to see how we can have the skills required to be a hub for conferences and events. We are on a good trend but we need to make certain adjustments and improvements to get to a better level.

We are set to host the African Union and the World Economic Forum meetings this year, these are very big forums, this shows we are on a positive trend.

Do you foresee any incidents during the championship?

We are well prepared and in the event of incidents we have mechanisms to ensure everything is in order. We have police to manage security inside and outside the stadiums, which is no surprise as Rwanda is one of the safest countries. We are using an electronic ticketing system to ensure that there is no foul play or counterfeit tickets. We have also availed tickets across the country.

We are calling on fans to arrive at the stadiums early on the opening match as gates will be closed by 1 pm.

Hosting CHAN is more like a hosting a wedding, you may have a very beautiful setting up for the wedding, but if only the bride and groom show up, the ceremony is not as beautiful. The most important thing about any ceremony are people who come to witness the event. Same way for CHAN, we are urging fans from all over the continent to come and watch the beautiful game.

editorial@newtimes.co.rw