Kaliga cranks up pressure on Magogo and federation

Secrecy has always been the great drum beat of Fufa. In 2005, while handing over office to Lawrence Mulindwa, Dr. James Sekajugo remarkably passed on a file containing a financial report that was anything but.

Instead of capturing the federation’s financial transactions, the report graded the performance of Vincent Khisa’s child in school.

Yes, dear reader, it was a school report! The jury is still out on whether this was an error of omission or commission. The flagrant act sure opened up the possibility of wonders one couldn’t begin to imagine.

With Denis Obua’s Fufa establishment having been disbanded for among other things misappropriating funds, Dr. Sekajugo had been asked to step in and oversee a normalisation process.

It’s safe to say that the medical doctor didn’t quite win top marks after the gaffe.

If anything, you could say Dr. Sekajugo was keeping with a longstanding tradition that has seen Fufa presidents provide details that are thin on how money from Fifa and other partners is appropriated.

Most Ugandans have pretty much become inured to the fact that Fufa cares little about the niceties of transparency.

All this means that it was a classic case of business as usual when erstwhile Fufa executive committee member, Mariam Kaliga made grand accusations about the person of current Fufa president Moses Magogo two Fridays ago.

Citing incidents of unadulterated nepotism and corruption, Kaliga proffered during a no-holds-barred media briefing that Magogo is no paragon of transparency.

With no full time job, Magogo is alleged to have used the billions worth of Ugandan shillings grants to finance a lavish lifestyle.

Fufa has since responded to the accusations with a frenzy of destruction.

It has described Kaliga’s outbursts as no more than a smear campaign tailor-made to take the sting out of Uganda’s flying start in the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations.

Sounds familiar? Well, former Fufa presidents Denis Obua and Lawrence Mulindwa have all at some point used the possibility of a Fifa ban to hush dissenting views.

Magogo is simply drawing on a tried and tested tactic.

Those roundly dismissing Kaliga as a hired gun in a proxy war should remember there is such a thing as accountability. Billions of shillings are entrusted to the care of Fufa on an annual basis.

The football governing body is surely duty-bound to account for the money. It tried to do just that during the 91st Fufa Ordinary Assembly in Soroti.

Fufa financial director Decolas Kiiza laboured to show how the federation has expended, wait for it, Shs 4.5 billion in a little over 18 months.

A few eyebrows were raised. In fact, there appears to be no sign of Kaliga recalibrating her stance.

While a child’s report card may not have been presented, Kaliga still holds that it doesn’t hurt to double check some of the quotations with the government ombudsman.

Fufa’s response is that football matters have to be dealt with decisively by the so-called football family — the Fufa assembly that by and large parrots its president’s narrative.

Such an approach firmly slams the door on inclusiveness.

To its credit, Fufa announced on Wednesday that an independent Audit and Compliance Committee will be created to usher in more transparency and inclusiveness.

But while the world is changing in all ways Ugandan football administrators should embrace, secrecy continues to hold sway at Fufa House in Mengo.

The qualifier of the Audit and Compliance Committee as independent doesn’t quite mean it will have as much bark as bite.

Bombers: Why there is much more to Sekabembe’s no-show

The national boxing team is lumbering way before the bell is sounded at the World Amateur Boxing Championships.

After taking in ferocious left hooks and a leading right-hand jab for good measure, the team fondly known by the moniker Bombers will next week arrive in Doha, Qatar, dazed by a bombshell.

Mike Sekabembe is largely responsible for the state of stupor. The super heavyweight’s startling decision to figure in the World Military Games under the banner of UPDF con-tinues to pop eyes.

With berths at the Rio Olympics up for grabs, the World Amateur Boxing Championships offer much more than just the triviality of a fist fight.

Yet Seka-bembe — a bronze medalist at the 2012 Commonwealth Games — was quick to put the prestigious championships on the back burner.

Unsurprisingly, Sekabembe’s decision has been greeted with vitriol with some even claiming the boxer was distracted by the lure of riches. UPDF not only picks up Seka-bembe’s tab, but also calls the tune he dances to.

Sure, the super heavyweight danced his way to South Korea as opposed to Qatar, but this was by no means singularly down to being on UPDF’s payroll.

Sekabembe must have worked out that he stands a better chance to become an Olympian by taking part in Africa’s Rio Olympics qualifying tour-nament in Yaounde, Cameroon, next March.

There is expected to be cutthroat competition in Doha as the World Amateur Boxing Championships barrel through two weeks of October (from 5th to 18th).

With the world’s best amateur boxers having descended on Doha, and Sekabembe out of the equation, the Bombers will place their hopes on a trio that includes exciting light flyweight Fazil Juma Kaggwa and bantamweight Rogers Semitala.

The two together with the unheralded Abdul Hassan have in the build up to the championships been quick to point out that they have access to a storeroom of hope.

The preparations have hardly been ideal, but the trio has been quick to exhaust itself of bitterness.

Their coach, Dick Katende, has after all always urged his apprentices not to wallow in self-pity.

Uganda has qualified a raft of boxers to the Olympics over the years. None of them has wallowed in self-pity despite operating in unremittingly hostile conditions. Three of them have in fact gone on to win four Olympic medals.

Ugandans have come to expect their boxers to bear minimal evidence of the tough times in which they operate.

But as Sekabembe showed, if given a better option, the boxers would have a change of heart. They too have aspirations.
Make no mistake, representing your country is nothing short of fulfilling.

Nothing beats putting your hand on your heart and proudly singing your national anthem. It could also just as well pass for an empty pleasure.

To rid such emptiness, the boxers have to be appreciated. It’s been quite awhile since President Idi Amin made them feel well appreciated.

We know the golden generation of Ayub Kalule, Cornelius Boza Edwards, and John Mugabi sparkled thanks to among other things Amin’s generosity (he once gave a national team that had the three boxers the presidential jet to honour an international engagement).

Kenneth Gimugu, the Uganda Boxing Federation president, recently laid bare his exasperation when he shared a photo of his counterpart in South Africa, Andile Mofu of SANABO, getting a ten million rands grant (about Shs 2.6 billion) from government.

Gimugu wrote on his Facebook page: “Here is how South Africa’s Sports minister fares in terms of caring about boxing.

Compare with what his Ugandan counterpart doesn’t do”. Little wonder, the Bombers are lumbering.

What we now know

We now know that the national women’s basketball team nailed down a credible top ten fin-ish at the Afrobasket Women 2015.

The absence of star players Claire Lamunu and Sharon Karungi coupled with the fact that the team was making its debut at the championship meant that hidings were never far away.

We know that the Gazelles — as the team is referred to — suffered a number of them during the group stage.
This could have owed much to either nerves symptomatic of debutants or the fact that the team’s build up to the championship was hopelessly bo-gus.

The team only got to Yaounde, Cameroon, to play in the championship hours before the match against Gabon. This after it was forced to register a forfeiture at the 11th All Africa Games.

We now know that the Gazelles have done enough to show that they deserve better. Much better. They won two matches (South Africa and Algeria) for crying out loud!

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