Tashobya retained as NCS chairman

Ambrose Tashobya has been re-appointed by the State Minister for Sports Peter Ogwang as head of the National Council of Sports (NCS) board at least until 2028.

The board, appointed by the aforementioned Minister, is considered the governing body of NCS but has gone through some streamlining following the enactment of the new National Sports Act, 2023 that was assented to by President in August last year.

From a Council that oscillated between 11 and 12 members working on a two-year term in the past, the new law provides for just seven representatives on a four year term that is renewable just once for each.

The Minister is supposed to appoint the board that comprises of a representative of the Ministry responsible for sports, two persons who shall be representatives of all traditional regions of Uganda specified in the First Schedule of the Constitution, a representative of national sports associations or national sports federations, a representative of athletes, a representative of the private sector and a person with knowledge and experience in sports administration.

The Minister also has to take into consideration the; interests and stakeholders of the sports sector, persons with disability and gender balance.

The personalities

Of the appointed members, who were shared in a press release from the Ministry Wednesday, three are women. These include Cecilia Anyakoit and Gloria Evelyn Piloya who served on the previous two boards under the stewardship of Tashobya (2022-2024) and Donald Rukare (2020-2022). Piloya also represents persons with disabilities.

Anyakoit also served in the one that was appointed in 2018 under Bosco Onyik and is alongside Zubair Galiwango, who went to NCS in 2011 under Anthony Katamba’s reign, the longest serving board members so they fulfill the condition of ‘person with knowledge and experience in sports administration.’

Names of athletes’ representatives do not get bigger than World and Olympic marathon champion Stephen Kiprotich while a Google search shows that Jacqueline Basemera is the representative of the Ministry of Education and Sports where she serves as Principal Assistant Secretary. Moses Omara Anyii – a banker from Soroti is the representative from the private sector.

Progress

Tashobya, who served as president of basketball body Fuba from 2007 to 2019 and as vice president of Uganda Olympic Committee (UOC), was in Abidjan at the time of re-appointment and preferred to be reached for comment after his return tomorrow. 

His first tenure probably had two major talking points. The increase of the budget for NCS to over Shs47bn with an attempt by Parliament to ringfence amounts for federations. Effectively, there is more money especially for national team activities in the various federations.

The other issue was an inherited and protracted war with some federations, mainly the netball one - culminating into court cases, calls for audit (in federations and even for NCS) from Parliament, imprisonment of the then netball president Sarah Babirye Kityo and further instituting of a normalization committee last November to settle things.

NCS Board Members

Ambrose Tashobya – Chairperson

Stephen Kiprotich

Zubair Galiwango

Cecilia Anyakoit

Jacqueline Basemera

Gloria Evelyn Piloya

Moses Omara Anyii