The Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development is this afternoon set to launch the National budget for the financial year, 2022/2023. With a projection of about 48 trillion shillings in this Financial year, the debate on who gets the biggest share of the sports budget continues with a majority of the sports federations claiming that the National Council of Sports is not equitably allocating these funds and is instead giving priority to FUFA which is not delivering in as far as results are concerned.
While appearing on #NBSportThisMorning, a morning show on NBS Sport hosted Andrew Kabuura, Amal Kansime, Brian Tuka, and Desire Derekford, the Uganda Boxing Federation President Moses Muhangi showed his frustration as to why other sports disciplines are under funded. “The issue is not about the amount of money allocated in the sports budget. However, our problem is that we do not have equitable portions in the sports budget”, he said. He added on by sharing his complaint by saying that the sports budget allocation to different federations has more to do with friends not principles and that there is no criteria followed when it comes to the distribution of sports funds. “The reason why FUFA gets more funding is because the federation president is friends with the budget allocators and it’s sad that the sports disciplines that bring glory to the country are neglected with very small funding” , he added. Moses Muhangi, who is also a former Ugandan proffessional boxer, thanked Next Media for launching a 24-hour sports channel (NBS Sport). However, he cautioned that the survival of the channel will depend on how much content is generated by all sports disciplines, and that is where the budget debate comes in.
Patrick Ntege, a member of the National Council of Sports, who was also one of the invited guests, however, did not agree with the submissions of Moses Muhangi and justified as to why the Federation of Uganda Football Association gets the most share of the budget portion when it comes to allocation. Patrick insisted that the reason why FUFA gets more funding is because football is the biggest sport in the country and like any other government sector, fundings will never be the same because needs are different.
According reports , the Ministry of Finance is set to allocate about 47 billion shillings to the sports sector a slight increment from the financial year 2021/2022
