NCS doesn’t have powers to disband federations – court
UOC president William Blick (left), Fufa boss Moses Magogo (right) and his vice Dennis Mbidde compare notes yesterday. PHOTO by Ismail Kezaala
What you need to know:
All sport. National Council of Sports ordered to pay damages to Uganda Table Tennis Association president as Fufa boss claims government body is hostile and run by a bunch of jokers.
KAMPALA.
National Council of Sports (NCS) will dig deep into government coffers to pay damages after court ruled that they illegally disbanded the Uganda Table Tennis Association (UTTA) executive headed by Robert Jjagwe.
The ruling, delivered last week by High Court judge Yasin Nyazi, stipulates that NCS has no legal powers to disband federations. The development has aroused bitterness among several association leaders with Federation of Uganda Football Associations (Fufa) president, Moses Magogo, describing NCS officials as jokers.
“After here, I am going to file my bill of costs and it won’t be very little money. And this is taxpayers’ money. It’s your money,” Jjagwe’s lawyer Fred Ssemwanga, said during a press conference at Uganda Olympic Committee (UOC) offices in Lugogo yesterday.
“We think it’s wrong for government officials to continue wasting public funds in such a manner.” Uganda Rowing Federation (URF) president, Hamzah Kahwa, used the press conference to accuse NCS of registering a rival body headed by his former secretary general Solomon Muwonge. “These people (NCS) are unserious. They don’t know what they are implementing. I think they are ignorant,” fumed Kahwa.
Contempt of court
NCS were last year held in contempt of court and ordered to pay Shs180m to Legal Brains Trust, who sued on behalf of selected federations seeking to block the government agency from implementing a new set of guidelines. The guidelines require all federations to incorporate as Trustees and register afresh, among other requirements.
Since last year, only 17 out of 50 national federations have complied with the guidelines. Despite being among the few that adhered to the new guidelines, Jjagwe said NCS pushed him out and organized elections which brought in Douglas Kayondo as new president. Court ruled that the elections were illegally staged and asked Kayondo to return the certificate of recognition issued to him by NCS. Magogo, flanked by one of his vice-presidents, Denis Mbidde, attended yesterday’s press conference in a solidarity gesture to UTTA and took issue with NCS. Former UTTA boss, Emmanuel Matyetsye, also attended the press conference.
“The regulations done in 2014 are archaic and totally useless. They don’t solve the problems of sports in the country,” Magogo said.
“As a federation, we fulfilled 99 per cent of the requirements and submitted but we couldn’t register as a Trustee. We told NCS from the start that there would be a clash with Fifa Statutes if we registered as a Trustee,” added Magogo. NCS has now given all federations that have not complied until June 30 to do so or be disbanded.
Instead of such ultimatums, Magogo and UOC president William Blick called for dialogue between NCS and federations.
