By Silvano Kibuuka.
For the longest time, sports federation leaders have succumbed into administrative wrangles from amongst themselves, especially over leadership.
Everyone assumed that matters of sports would never warrant dragging culprits into prison cells and all the warring factions would settle the matters outside the courts of law and at most through arbitration committees selected by the National Council of Sports (NCS).
But things have changed since the 2014 statutory instrument act was passed by the government as a benchmark to be followed by NCS to oversee smooth management and administration of sports in the country.
The gradual increment of the national sports budget over the years from sh400m before 2000 to the sh17B started demanding for bigger accountability measures from the government by the federations, but still no sports official would ever imagine the issue could at one time worsen.
Further increment of the sports budget to sh49B (though reversed later to sh17B) and giving NCS the mandate to run an independent vote in terms of accountability to the ministry of finance, the issues of failing to account for the money given to the federations started becoming a menace.
The month of May has opened a new era in sports management when two federation officials have been summoned to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the Parliament, interrogated by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Parliament Police Division (PPD) and dragged to the courts of law, then ending up in prison.
They have been handled separately by a PAC that is chaired by Bugiri Municipality legislator Asuman Basalirwa.
The president of Uganda Netball Federation (UNF), Sarah Babirye Kityo was the first culprit when she was on Friday May 12 summoned to the Parliament and handed over to the CID for interrogation on charges of obtaining money by false pretense at the Buganda Road Court.
Ms. Babirye who is also a former MP for youths at the Parliament of Uganda was remanded to Luzira Prisons after being denied bail, but later reproduced to the same court on Tuesday May 17 for a successful bail.
She is to reappear at the same court on June 6.
She was with her former treasurer in UNF, Zainab Namutebi and were both granted a cash bail of sh1m each by the Buganda Road Grade One magistrate Seyna Owomugisha.
The UNF boss and her co-accused had been remanded at Luzira prison on Monday after charges of obtaining money by false pretense from Sarah Wamala and Gloria Kikomeko.
They each claim to have lost sh8m (sh16m total) to the accused during the time when UNF participated in the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.
Babirye and Namutebi presented two sureties, Daniel Ntale and Dorothy Lwanga.
Hardly one year in office after Babirye had a landslide win to become the UNF president on May 6 2021, she disbanded many of her executive members including Namutebi and introduced a secretariate and a CEO to manage the sport.
The UNF boss Babirye is currently out of office for three months to pave the way for investigations in the management of the netball federation.
Her vice president at UNF, Brigadier Flavia Byekwaso is now in charge of the federation and bussy organizing the team for the Vitality Netball World Cup 2023 due to take place in Cape Town South Africa from July 28 to August 6 2023.
On the same note the Uganda Boxing Federation (UBF), Moses Muhangi followed suit after going through the same trends.
From the Friday May 12 PAC interrogated, Muhangi was summoned back to Parliament on May 15 with his former accountant Lydia Namuleme who is said to have been released the following day.
Muhangi appeared in Nakawa Court before Chief Magistrate Ritah Kasada and was remanded to Luzira prison till May 31.
He is charged on account of uttering false documents and forged accountability when he presented receipts of sh3.5m that was proven by CID for having been exaggerated.
On the remand note, Muhangi called on the minister of education and sports, Janet Kataha Museveni and President Yoweri Museveni to intervene in the matters of sports administration claiming intrigue and haunting.
“A situation should not arise when President Museveni will come out to say that Babirye, Robert Jjaggwe (the president of Uganda Table Tennis Association) and I have been shot dead by pigs,” Muhangi said hours before boarding the bus to Luzira.
SURPRISING!
Surprisingly, the three federation bosses have for over two year’s been in a seek and hide attacks both verbal and on social media with the NCS over the government allocation of the sports funds to the federations that they regarded as un proportional.
In the over one year of accusations over the disbursement of funds to the federations, the NCS general secretary, Bernard Ogwel has been warning all the federation officials over accountability issues that would land them into trouble if mishandled.
The NCS conducted a seminar to the 51 sports federations under their mandate that was attended by the president heads and accounting officers on how to manage accountability of sports funds extended to them.
But surprisingly in the first court proceedings of the two federation presidents, the face of NCS did not manifes ■
NEWS
