Shocking detail emerge, as NCS procured sports gears disappear in hot air

By Emmanuel Sekago

Sports is one element that brings everyone together the youth, elders and National council of sports is the body that’s mandated to oversee on behalf of Uganda government.

One needs to understand National council of sports mission statement is very clear on maximizing opportunities for all ugandans to participate and excel in sports, while strategic objective is to develop, promote and control all forms of sports on a national basis, to build capacity of NCS to deliver on its mandate and to improve the global image of Uganda through increased branding, image building, cooperation  sports competition, collaboration and partnerships.

The document seen by wallnetnews, Ministerial Policy Statement FY 2023-2024, In the first half of the Financial Year , the achievements in 2022-2023  of the National council of sports were two  major international sports championships like Commonwealth Games and Islamic Solidarity Games carried out in Birmingham and Konye in Turkey respectively.

Uganda’s performance at the Birmingham- Commonwealth games 2022  was so excellent and can’t go without congratulating our athlete’s job well done, with Team Uganda winning  3 Gold and 2 Bronze medals, but  It should be noted that in May 2022, Parliament of Uganda passed a budget of UGX7.1 billion to support Ugandan athletes to participate in the 2022 Commonwealth games that took place between  in July 28th to August 8th 2022 in Birmingham, United Kingdom.

In the document, National council of sports confirmed that procured assorted sports equipments and distributed to districts in Uganda i.e, 3350 footballs, 400 Netballs, 400 volleyballs, 250 basket balls, 76 footballs, 20 Netball uniforms, 10 basketball uniforms, 50 trophies, 40 boxing gloves, 30 boxing punching pads, 50 football nets, 50 stockings and 50 branded netball bibs.

Shockingly,National council of sports  donated sports equipment to the  annual sports tournament  known as Ateker Cup  were the assortments were handed over  by NCS General Secretary, Dr Patrick Ogwel at their head offices in Lugogo, equipments included; 100 footballs, 20 netballs, 10 volleyballs, three trophies, three sets of nets, and four sets of jerseys for the football semifinalists of the tournament which were  received by Ateker Cup tournament CEO Isaac Olupot. But surprisingly the teams did not receive the sets of jerseys because in the finals it was between Katakwi and Tororo and both teams dressed in their own usual uniforms, the question is the assortments disappeared to which part?

Surprisingly, in the National council of sports (NCS) Annual report 2022-2023, Support to Community Sports Programs the National Council of Sports continued to support community programs by providing basic sports equipment. During the performance period a total of 19,507 balls, trophies and sets of jerseys were distributed for the period July 2022 to June 2023 as summarized; Balls-16,893, Jerseys-1,364 sets, Trophies-290 Pcs, Assorted Equipments-960 pieces and Total-19,507.

But according to the Ministerial Policy Statement FY 2023-2024 document, our sources in Uganda districts as reported, revealed that they have never seen those assorted sports equipment, NCS claimed to have procured 40 boxing gloves, 30 boxing punching pads, meaning they all disappeared in hot air.

In the same document NCS supported Two (2) national sports associations/ federations subscribed to international sports bodies and 46 National sports federations and associations supported to implement sports activities, Seven (7)  National sports federations and Associations supported in Major sports international games.

Meanwhile, Looking at its Performance highlights for the  FY 2022-2023 – Vote 166 National Council of Sports was allocated UGX. 47,812,199,000 of which UGX. 47,030,812,625 (98%) is Government of Uganda Tax Revenue and UGX. 781,386,375 (3%) is Non-Tax, to the Expenditure for the FY 2022-2023 Out of UGX. 47,812,199,000 transferred from the treasury, UGX. 1,608,542,000 (3.4%) was spent on Wage, UGX.38,030,985,000 (79.5%) was incurred on Subvention Recurrent, UGX. 420,897,000 (0.9%) was incurred on Gratuity and UGX. 7,751,775,000 (16.2%) was incurred on Non-Wage Recurrent.