1964 NCS Act strangles sport - experts

At independence, Uganda was amongst Africa's sports heavyweights.

In disciplines like boxing, Uganda was for most of the 60s and 70s rated third best in the world after the USA and Russia.

Almost six decades later this multi-sport nation is hanging on a handful of medalists and a sports infrastructure model in reverse mode.

The story of sports facilities pans out like a horror piece as the bulk of the county's grounds have been snapped up for none sector related activities.

If Joshua Cheptegei, Stephen Kiprotich, and Abraham Kiplimo weren't winning this 41-sport nation would be nowhere on the international medal log.

So, what exactly could have deterred Uganda from well-rounded sports development?

Until recently, limited funding was a key bottleneck. Then-President Yoweri Museveni in 2017 responded with a huge offer that keeps on growing in billions of shillings.

But even that has not been enough to kickstart the industry. Still strangling the sector, is an outdated law that established Uganda's top sports body- NCS in 1964.

Even NCS concedes that there is a need to review.  "Since its enactment in 1964, the Act has never been reviewed. It has become obsolete and oblivious to modern development trends in sports. Efforts need to be put in place to review the act," stated NCS in a recent annual report.

On taking office, new sports state minister Denis Hamson Obua promised a review of the law amongst his priorities.

"The key areas that we are looking at include the law. We are using a 1964 law. By all standards, this is an archaic and obsolete law that calls for a total overhaul. The challenge we have is that the policy that was made to operationalize the coming into force of the bill to repeal the 1964 law is under review," Obua says.

He says that until this 2004 policy is fully reviewed, the bill cannot come into force because the policy operationalizes the bill.

"So, in the ministry by the time I joined, I found the issue of revising the sports policy, it is on course. I hope we will be able to get done with this and be in a position to introduce the bill and operationalize this policy because the policy is under review. So that is one area that we need to handle."

Key among the articles that stakeholders want immediately changed is a provision on the objectives and functions of the council.

Therein in Article 2 lies the council's role as being "to develop, promote, and control all forms of amateur sports on a national basis in conjunction with voluntary amateur organisations.

The defeatist catchphrase here is amateur.

In this modern era where almost every aspect of the industry is tending towards professionalism, the extreme opposite is seen as catastrophic.

There has also been a call for more stakeholder involvement.

As things stand now, it is upon the minister to appoint a council of eleven people to steer the body.

The constituent 41 national bodies, however, argue that it is only fair they have direct involvement in this process since this is their umbrella.

But despite the numerous concerns to turn around the law, little still seems to have been done.

At a recent National Associations Sports Forum the law was again cited as the biggest hindrance to development.

Innocent Kihika, a lawyer attached to Uganda Golf Union, offered to help with the formulation of the new one.

He was applauded by everyone including State Sports Minister Obua. You would expect the respective authorities to have accordingly set in motion the necessary prerequisites for change.

But to date, nothing has been done. It seems we are not about to detach ourselves from the claws of the old law.