Friday 18 April 2008

New Sports Minister, what now?

It’s those times again when a new Minister is appointed and takes office as usual with much gusto. But we’ve all come to expect this over and over. In the last 10 years Sports has fallen into hands of not less than 5 Ministers. It usually fell under the Ministry of Gender and Social Affairs, which metamorphosed into Culture, Heritage and Sports onto what was last called Gender,Sports,Culture and Social Services. Right now it’s been accorded a fancy name, Youth and Sports.
I’ll also say that it was accorded to one of the first time Members of Parliament in the 10th Parliament, Dr. Helen Sambili who’s also among the 5 female Ministers appointed to the largest Cabinet in our country’s history thus far.
It bothers me how the politicos get us into predicaments every so often. Why do I say this? Going by previous appointments, none of the appointees ever fits the bill of being in the Ministry and they come chest-thumping and proclaiming to the hills about their expectations. What do we end up with? The same old, same old…..infighting at different sports associations and federations, corruption, incompetence, lack of funding and the usual maladies which afflict our sports. Some try muddy their hands but they end up with egg yolk on their faces. A major headache is usually the Kenya Football Federation which many an official use to launch a career into politics (talking of which I can remember about 3-4 current members of the Cabinet being in the game!)
The new Minister came up and said she would ensure the Sports Bill (which I have tried getting a copy, any help on that one?) is passed into law to develop a proper Sports policy for the country. Well said, commendable and well-founded! I only wish you the best in your delivery. Hey, let’s just say, I’ll be a blog away if you need any consultation. I’ll be waiting ………

2 comments:

Old Faithful said...

Interesting to note that Prof. Sambili said she would overhaul sport "beginning with football" which I think is the problem. As much as football is a sport for the masses, and has the largest following, it may be easier to sort out the smaller more successful sports and let football look on with envy!

Anonymous said...

Can't agree more with you on that one Dataminer. Even though it may not be to some of our expectations some of the disciplines are already doing that, e.g. rugby.
Football's just too crowded even for us especially here in Kenya. Energies would be totally wasted on this effort...no bets on this !