Athletics body cleared by NCS, budgets for sh1bn

By Norman Katende

The Uganda Athletics Federation (UFA) has drawn a budget of sh1bn to successfully hold activities for the 2015 season after being declared as fully registered by the National Council of Sports (NCS).

At the annual general assembly that took place at Lugogo on Saturday, the federation treasurer Godfrey Nuwagaba read a proposed budget for all local and international events and also announced an increase of receipts from the sh1.7bn that had been budgeted for to sh2bn.

More of the funds came in from government to support the Africa Cross-country Championships which Uganda hosted at Kololo last year.

"The budget is basically focusing on activities that will see Uganda put up a good performance at both the World Cross-country and World Athletics Championships,” said Nuwagaba.

“We are also adding more funds in preparation for the 2017 World Cross Country Championships which we are hosting.”

UAF president Domenic Otuchet said the federation has continued with its performance at international level, winning a total of 28 medals at both the Africa and world event.

"This has been done by a number of people in the background including coaches, organisers and administrators who need to be recognized fully," he said.

The technical committee also released the event programmes for all the events and announced to all delegates that registration will have to be held days prior to the event as a means of making the start list beforehand.

NCS assistant secretary in charge of technical, David Katende, was pleased with the deliberation of the assembly, saying that it showed maturity.

"It is no surprise that athletics is one of the federations that have fully registered as per the 2014 government requirement and what they need is to come and pick their certificate of registration.”

The NCS official also challenged the athletics body to ensure that the good administration and unity at national level trickles down to the lower levesl.​