Why Sportsmen joy is short-lived; There’s too little to smile about

Although Kenya is a force to reckon with in the ports arena especially in the athletics front, there is too little to smile about if what the Sports Ministry is a thing t go by. The Ministry of Sports has said it owes sportsmen and women Sh235 million in pending awards.

Speaking before a parliamentary committee on sports, culture and tourism, Sports Principal Secretary Peter Kaberia said they have been unable to pay due to lack of funds.

He said the awards keep rising as more athletes continue to win medals in international competitions.

“At the moment, we owe our sportsmen and women who have excelled in past international events Sh235 million. Unfortunately, the figure keeps rising as they continue to win.

“We require budgetary support to be able us to pay considering that these awards continue to encourage our athletes to do well in international events,” he said.

The award scheme was mooted more than ten years ago and has seen Olympic gold winners get Sh1 million, silver medallists take home Sh750,000 and Sh500,000 for bronze medallists.

The government has, however, not honoured the awards due to budgetary constraints, he said. Kaberia told the committee they need almost Sh1 billion for various sporting events lined up for this year.

The World Rally leg will cost the country Sh450 million. Other major events coming up include next month’s Kenya Open Golf that will cost tax payer’s more than Sh200 million while Harambee Stars, who have qualified for the Africa Cup of Nations finals after a 15-year wait, will be allocated Sh244 million.

The ministry will also require another Sh66 million to begin preparations for next year’s IAAF under-20 Championships. Kaberia told the committee that lack of funding has led to stalling of renovation and building of new stadia.

“We had planned to build seven regional stadia but this has not been possible owing to lack of funding.“Renovations at Kasarani and Nyayo stadiums have been done but not completed because of lack of finances. The two facilities are however usable though a lot of work still need to be done on them.”

The ministry has not been able to build the five stadia promised when the jubilee government came to power which led to the country lose the opportunity to host last year’s Africa Nations Championships (CHAN) due to lack of facilities.

Last year, the ministry also struggled to honour funding requests to national federations and teams representing the country in international events due to lack of funding.

Kaberia said he hopes the sports fund will help the sports ministry to meet some of the budgetary short falls.The fund has also been enacted and has met at least twice to deliberate on the funding requests.

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