NCS beauty must not be skin-deep
The NCS have applied the magic brush to their headquarters and ushered in comfort and respectability, but now they have to turn to their operations which desperately need an urgent makeover of their own. PHOTO BY ISMAIL KEZAALA
There should not be any qualms with the National Council of Sports (NCS) for their choice to engage in expensive cosmetic surgery, but at the end of the day it is not just their premises but their operations that need to go under the physician’s knife.
Earlier this week, the NCS unveiled the fresh and neat headquarters that have taken the place of the outdated and crumbling structures first erected in 1954; but beyond the pomp and fanfare of the occasion was the stark reminder that they have neither meticulously revamped the Sports Act enacted that same year, nor effectively reined-in the largely errant federations and associations that Act gave them jurisdiction over.
Having smart offices will go a long way in helping the men, women and institution of NCS to be taken more seriously, but the importance of the facelift goes well beyond perception and it does facilitate execution by the individuals and the group; it is in that area of execution that the Council needs an even bigger retouch.
Take the issue of the new Act the Council is supposed to have ratified and should be enforcing by now. In its place instead is an impasse that includes but is not limited to a petition to the President and a court case, all because they could not properly sell the concept and establish buy-in from the member federations, many of which (among other grievances) took exception to the notion that the NCS, which doesn’t fund them requires them to submit audited books of accounts.
The funding is a sticky issue since the paltry sums the NCS gets from the Ministry of Sports can do little beyond the remuneration of the employees for whom the new office structure has been instituted. So, imagine my bemusement at the sight of Sports Minister Charles Bakkabulindi cutting the tape and waxing lyrical.
Because it cannot fund the federations, the Council lacks the moral authority and wherewithal to beat them into line when they go astray and act with impunity, as indeed have the three traditionally biggest ones in the country - football, athletics and boxing. The systemic and endemic decay eating up those three has seen Uganda retrogress dramatically in global sporting terms, the stench occasionally perfumed over by an outstanding team result here and there, or historic feats from individuals who have virtually ventured out on their own.
Brazzaville debacle
A look at the debacle at the recent All Africa Games, which the Council directly presided over, tells it all. Uganda’s numbers have gradually and then drastically dwindled from the hundreds when the Council first came into being more than half a century ago, to a few tens; and the medal haul has dropped in direct proportion down to the scandalous two bronze from Congo Brazzaville, where the country’s reputation was not only battered in sporting arenas but in the sleeping quarters too as we were accused (rightly or wrongly, but not for the first time) of pinching beddings and toiletries.
The Brazzaville trip had started on a sour note that underlined the Council’s limitations and shortcomings, the failure to include the women’s basketball Gazelles who had qualified against the odds a sad indictment on a country that can’t bankroll team sport in the 21st century. The Council’s (and mother ministry’s) mobilisation skills are called into question too, considering that elsewhere smart cadres and campaign strategists have liaised with netball, men’s basketball and football teams etc to solicit and secure presidential handshakes in election season.
It is more incumbent upon the Council though to work towards an empowered and ably facilitated institution, because theirs must not be just a beauty skin-deep.
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