Due to stringent demands of Performance-Based Budgeting, coupled with chronic
fiscal stresses that have been lately exacerbated by the ongoing global financial
crisis in Botswana, there is an increasing pressure for high levels of accountability
in the use of public funds. This, therefore, means that project appraisal is one of
the critical stages in the project cycle to ensure the prudent husbandry of public
finances. This paper, employing the case study method, uses the Serowe stadium
to showcase project appraisal gone awry. Much against expert advice, the stadium
was constructed on black cotton soil and is now being relocated at huge costs to
the tax-payers. Importantly, the Serowe stadium debacle affirms the obvious; when
rational analysis and politics collide, the latter, often, indeed almost always, wins.
Despite this grim reality, to the extent possible, there is a need to curtail political
interference from areas that are technical and, therefore, afford experts some
degree of autonomy. Should this situation obtain, this will lead to rational and
cost-effective decisions being taken in the public sector