MPs Query NCS over Briefcase Federations.

MPs Query NCS over Briefcase Federations.

NO Clear Accountability for 4.8bn Commonwealth Games Funds 

The National Council of Sports has been tasked by the Ad hoc Committee of Parliament to provide a detailed report on the sports federations’ registration process, reporting, and accountability after suspecting that there are briefcase federations that receive govt funding.

The committee also grilled NCS officials over the lack of proper accountability for Sh4.8bn that was spent on Team Uganda in the recently concluded Common Wealth Games in Birmingham. 

The parliamentary Select committee that was appointed in November to investigate operations of the National Council of Sports following inconsistencies in statements regarding the release of funds to the sub-sector has today started the inquiry. The committee chaired by Laura Kanushu the PWDs Representative has today started on the inquiry.

Committee members were irked at the National Council of Sports for failure to provide accountability of Shs4.8 billion to facilitate activities of the 2022 Commonwealth Games. NCS only presented a block-figure to the committee with no breakdown of activities that cost a taxpayer this money. 

It was found out that Shs1 billion was also spent by NCS  for the Fifth Islamic Solidarity games in Turkey and Shs400 million for the 2022 Rugby Sevens World Cup in South Africa among others but all lacked accountability  breakdown 

The Ad hoc committee was also concerned with the absence of policy on the criteria which is used to register and consider federations to get funding from the government. This was after it was discovered that there were briefcase federations that receive government funding with no proper accountability. 

The Minister of State for Education and Sports (Sports), Peter Ogwang conceded that there is a need to re-examine the federations as he suspects some of them only exist on paper and do not account for government funds.

51 sports federations are registered in the country. Committee members demanded that NCS provides a detailed report on the federations’ registration process, reporting, and accountability after discovering that many of them have accountability challenges 

The National Council of Sports is allocated  47.8bn as its annual budget and the committee is interested in accountability .