Sports Council to lose Lugogo stadium

Aug 24, 2009

THE National Council of Sports (NCS) risks losing its headquarters on Coronation Avenue in Kampala for failure to raise sh1b in premium and ground rent.Two years after securing a lease offer for the 12-acre piece of land in Kololo and Lugogo, the sports c

By James Bakama

THE National Council of Sports (NCS) risks losing its headquarters on Coronation Avenue in Kampala for failure to raise sh1b in premium and ground rent.

Two years after securing a lease offer for the 12-acre piece of land in Kololo and Lugogo, the sports council is yet to pay a penny to Kampala City Council.

The property, estimated at about sh50b, is one of the biggest sports complexes in eastern Africa, with facilities for a variety of sports. Besides the NCS headquarters, it has a bar and restaurant, East Africa’s biggest sports hall, a hostel, a guest house, a hockey ground, a cricket oval, tennis courts and a boxing gym.

In the lease offer letter of July 22, 2008, the council was supposed to settle the payments within 30 days.

The five-year tenancy, that was extendable to 99 years, required the council to pay sh1b in premium to Kampala Central Division and a sh20m annual ground rent to the Kampala district land board.

NCS general secretary Jasper Aligawesa attributed the delay to pay to financial constraints.

The sports body gets sh488m from the Government every year to pay its staff, utilities and the 42 national sports associations. Aligawesa said the funds are supplemented with sh200m raised from a restaurant, a hall and musical shows in the cricket oval.

“We have to look elsewhere for funding if we are to secure the title,” he said, disclosing that they were in advanced negotiations with a bank.

Another NCS official said their attempt to get a loan from the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) aborted following the Temangalo land saga.

“The NSSF had the best terms with an interest rate of 14% per annum,” said the source. “However, we could not continue with the process when a lot of issues were raised over the Temangalo transaction.”

The official said most financial institutions were reluctant to grant them a loan due to lack of security. The source added that they intend to borrow about sh3b to settle the premium and ground rent and use the balance to upgrade the facilities.

“We fear some unscrupulous people can take advantage of the expiry of the lease offer to evict us although KCC would have to give us a formal notice if the offer is to be cancelled.”

NCS has lost big chunks of land to Megha Industries, Shell and Umeme.

Aligawesa said the sports council had the capacity to repay the loan, especially after the sh700m rehabilitation of the Lugogo hall is completed.

He predicted that earnings from the facilities would triple to sh600m a year when the hall is complete. “This will be an ultra modern hall in a prime area. So there should be good business,” he argued.

The sports council only managed to secure titles for plot 2-10 after a 2005 consent agreement with Kampala Land Board to surrender plots 61, 63, 65, and 15 on Upper Kololo Terrace and Hesketh Bell Road to Megha Industries to construct a hotel. It also withdrew a civil suit and a caveat on the five plots on the directives of then lands minister Kahinda Otafiire.

The council was supposed to withdraw its interest in the plots. In exchange, the minister would facilitate it to obtain a land title for plots 2-10 on Coronation Avenue.

The entire land, comprised on leasehold Register Volume 420 Folio 11, was leased to the registered trustees of the Uganda Sports Union (USU). The USU title was issued in 1955 for 99 years but was cancelled in 2005 by Kampala District Land Board for non-payment of rent.

USU had its largely Asian membership drawn from badminton, boxing, cricket, football, hockey, table tennis and tennis clubs. The union’s grip on the sports facility started loosening in 1972 when President Idd Amin expelled Asians.

In 1973, Amin authorised NCS to use the land after most of the USU members and registered trustees left the country. Most of the trustees are said to have died in England and Canada. Surviving ones are said to be either too old or not interested in the property.

Associations from which the USU trustees were drawn in 1997 made an unsuccessful attempt to revive the body.

There are mixed feelings from some of the current association heads.

“We are all (including NCS) squatters on the land,” insists Uganda Hockey Association boss William Kibuuka Musoke.

“NCS is simply on the land in caretaker capacity. They were never given any powers of attorney by USU to sell,” noted Kibuuka Musoke.

Uganda Tennis Association chairman John Nagenda wants the Government to take over the facility. “In my view, the Government should annex Lugogo.”

Nagenda believes benefits from the Lugogo facility would be much more if the sports council was run by the ‘right people’. “You have some very odd people running NCS,” he says, explaining that the sports body must be run by people from the 42 affiliate bodies.

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