By Immanuel Ben Misagga
I wish to commend the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of parliament for exposing the rot in Ugandan sport. The zeal with which the committee is investigating sports matters was long overdue.
However, I am concerned the investigations are taking a predictable trend which may not yield results if it stops at the small fish in sports federations.
The conflicts between the National Council of Sports (NCS) and the heads of boxing and netball have been around for some time and have a lot to do with personal egos as much as financial impropriety.
However, it is important to put into perspective that both federations get less than Shs 1bn combined from NCS, which has about Shs 47bn at their disposal every year.
It is now coming to a month since PAC started the probe but I feel they have not even scratched where it matters most. I mean where the bulk of NCS funds go.
For instance, each year, NCS allocates Fufa more than Shs 20bn whose accountability is never public, not even to the Fufa delegates. So, the question is; is Fufa so clean or there is no will to probe it?
I would like to assume Fufa is clean and that their accounts and operations are in order but they must be seen to be so.
You cannot have a federation led by a self-confessed fraudster and expect it to be clean. Unfortunately, the fraudster is well connected to the powers that be that he would be in the loop about any moves to probe him.
It is a sad state that PAC may not do much but squeeze what they can from the ‘small’ federations as the real culprits dine at the high table.
Meanwhile, I expect PAC to streamline account transactions of sports funds right from NCS to the beneficiary or service provider. This business of handling cash cannot create proper accountabilities because so many things are involved such as commission agents and kickbacks.
There should be a way everything is channeled through the banking system to avoid more confusion.
