Have mafias infiltrated IGG’s office, what happened to the seven-day ultimatum?

Have mafias infiltrated IGG’s office, what happened to the seven-day ultimatum?

By Emmanuel Sekago

Kampala – After the Inspector General of Government took her time to critically analyze the netball sports problems, and for ensuring that sanity comes back in sports, a fortnight ago she issued a seven-day directive to the National Council of Sports (NCS) to release funds to Uganda Netball Federation (UNF).

According to a letter that was seen by Wallnetnews addressed to the National Council of Sports General Secretary Dr. Patrick Ogwel dated March 19th 2023, and copied to all the relevant offices, IGG received a complaint alleging among others; non-remittance/release of funds to federations to carry out their activities of sports, pursuant to the complaint, preliminary investigations conducted reveal that that Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development indeed transferred Shs7b to NCS.

The seven-day directive elapsed last week on Thursday with no funds transferred to UNF.

The Inspectorate of Government also found out NCS  has been using the accountability excuse and withheld funds meant for netball on false accusations to extent of withholding of Uganda Netball Federation funds on allegations of unaccounted for funds by NCS on unsubstantiated allegations is counterproductive and thus, maliciously crippling the federation’s plans and yet they have a world cup in July, women and men Africa netball championships and Uganda is the host in November 2023.

       She Cranes after beating Australia. File photo.

The Inspector General of Government directed NCS to transfer the funds meant for Uganda Netball Federation with seven (7 days) of receipt of the directive. She further directed NCS to furnish her office with evidence of such transfers to the federation as soon as practicable to form her opinion on the next course of action.

It should be noted that the Uganda sports problems have been generated by the officials at NCS who have turned out to be ‘untouchables.’

Surprisingly, the untouchables in sports at the Council after refusing to transfer the Uganda Netball Federation (UNF) funds within the stipulated days directed by the IGG; which seven days have since elapsed.

According to highly placed sources, NCS officials were recorded bragging from an upcountry hotel during the tour of stadia in the north, and eastern parts of the country, how they successfully through State Minister of Sports Peter Ogwang convinced the IGG to withdraw her directive claiming that the line Minister of Education and Sports, Janet K. Museveni was allegedly not happy with the directive.

The question perturbing stakeholders in the sports sector is how mafias in other government ministries, departments and authorities (MDAs) can infiltrate a high office like that of the IGG and force it to retrieve such a directive which was for the greater good of sports in the country?  And can corruption be wiped out of the sports sector because the untouchables seem to have influence in sports?

There are only three months left to the netball cup due in July in Cape Town, South Africa for the women also the men Africa netball championship to be hosted by Uganda in November.

With the confusion, one wonders whether Uganda will be able to participate in thee two tournaments?

As we report this, the World Netball body has threatened to put more sanctions in terms of fines to Uganda Netball Federation for failing to submit their official national team kits according to the rules. It should be noted that the netball body had ordered for the kits but because of NCS’ failure to give them funds, they can’t receive the kits so as to submit the samples to World Netball in time.

According to our investigations, it has been noted that NCS is playing delaying tactics to fail the UNF to field the teams for both the women and men’s coming tournaments in Cape Town and Kampala. This alone is going to put Uganda’s image under serious scrutiny.

Another scenario that is developing is the Uganda national boxing team, the Bombers squad, that has failed to report to camp ahead of the Africa zone 3 Boxing Championships that begins in Dar-es salaam, Tanzania on April 11th all due to lack of funding from NCS. Uganda Boxing Federation (UBF) was keen to send the team but lack of funding has crippled their efforts, and have pulled out of the competition

The focus according to Moses Muhangi, the Uganda Boxing Federation president is now to embark on the second edition of the boxing champions league competition.

According to interviews with some boxers, they are very bitter with NCS, who have really played a big role in fighting the sport of boxing, some of them especially the women were eager to redeem themselves in Tanzania after failing to compete at the just concluded IBA World Boxing Championships in India due to failure to fund UBF.

It should be noted that the chief executive officers of the 14-member Africa zone 3, only 11 countries to name a few like hosts Tanzania, Kenya, Somalia, Cameroon, DRC, Burundi Equatorial Guinea  and etc. have confirmed participation.

Information also has it that, UBF through the president Muhangi have petitioned the office of the IGG over 2022 Commonwealth games balances and quarterly releases.

Through a letter dated March 24th to the General Secretary National Council of Sports, and copied to the IGG that was received by NCS on the same date, Muhangi states that UBF submitted their Shs407,480,000 budget of the Commonwealth games on 4th May 2022 but to their disappointment on 27th May 2022, NCS only released Shs148,000,000 tagged to only residential camp, and disregarded all the other processes that made the team to fund itself for the trip to Tanzania for build-up games.

If mafia infiltration at NCS is not not checked, the future of sports in Uganda is set to go to dogs. The office of the IGG should stand up and be counted by keeping firm in the fight against corruption in sports, just like it is doing in the other department of government.

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