Today will see the President of the Boxing Federation, Moses Muhangi get nominated to run for Member of Parliament (MP) for the Kampala Central seat.
Among other reasons, Muhangi has come to believe that meaningful development funding for the Boxing Sport that he leads can only be achieved when he sits in Parliament himself. This is a belief that now has clear examples in our Sports Sector.
On a recent show on NBS Sport Muhangi gave examples of the football budget that shot to 20 billion Ugx when the Football President Hon. Moses Magogo entered Parliament as MP for Budiope East.
He added examples of other MPs whose sports constituencies are now getting good government funding allocations such as Rugby (7 billion) with Hon. Andrew Ojok, Motor Sport (3 billion) with Hon. Jimmy Akena, Paralympic Sports (1.2 billion) with Hon. Bumali Mpindi, Etc.
Uganda has sports such as Boxing and Netball that have historically put Uganda’s name on the world map with very good international medalling performances. In 2023 these two sports were each allocated 3 billion Ugx.
However they only received 1 billion Ugx of the total 3 billion allocated and they were also downgraded to 320 million or 0.32 billion Ugx the following year for reasons that were never expressly stated. You have to wonder why on earth we are under funding our high performing and medalling sports.
This forms part of Muhangi’s reasoning and his determination to enter Parliament as an MP. What we all need to appreciate however is the other hidden significance of Muhangi’s run for an MP seat. One of those is the huge youth population of Uganda with no jobs and no meaningful or productive occupation of their idle time. These youths pause a danger to the entire country. Very few sectors of the Ugandan economy can absorb them because most sectors are fully saturated. The job vacancies are simply not there.
Yet again very few sectors can absorb these youths massively and quickly. A factory for instance, takes time to set up and requires skilled man power which the youths may not have. Agriculture is not so attractive to the youths and it is quite underfunded in the government annual budget. Sports however can absorb the youths in very large numbers and quickly. A new Table Tennis or Boxing club can be set up in just one week. All it requires is a venue and equipment which are all readily available if the enabling funding is provided.
The trend of funding just a few sports with billions while the rest are given peanuts is therefore a very serious mistake on the part of government because as sure as night follows day, the idle youths will become a huge National problem. This is just a matter of time and they will not spare anyone. These youths are simply too many and dangerously idle. Government is currently spending a lot of money on constructing competition stadia but it has forgotten to fund the Federations with the youths who will play in these Stadia.
When you see what Muhangi has done in the Boxing Champions League (BCL), you get to appreciate how quickly and massively Sports can mop up youth idleness while diverting their excessive energy into something useful to them. The BCL has given boxing athletes, coaches, referees, etc. an income that comes twice every month. It takes up so many youths’ time both physically at the competition Arena and on NBS TV, time that would have otherwise, probably, been used for other sinister activities.
If Muhangi can do this with just 0.32 bn Ugx then what if he had an allocation of 3 billion Ugx that is nearly 10 times the current funding he receives? What if we had 10 BCLs running in different parts of Uganda like the new Sports Act stipulates? These are the questions that need to be answered as we resolve the problem of the idle youths. If Boxing got this kind of funding, all the 10 BCLs can actually start in just about 2 months and engage so many youths. This is what I mean by Sports’ ability to mop up youth idleness quickly.
Mugangi’s run for Parliament therefore exposes a serious lack of adequate funding for the National Sports Federations right from Parliament. We have 52 Sports Federations in Uganda but out of these there are over 25 Federations that the government gives only 10 million Ugx to operate for the whole year. You really have to wonder whether this is not a mockery of the highest order. And then you have to wonder who sits in Parliament to make such allocations and how on earth such allocations get approved on the floor of Parliament.
These reasons and more form part of Muhangi’s conviction that only by entering Parliament can he find a fair funding allocation for boxing and other Federations. A serious question to be asked here is whether all 52 Sports Federation Presidents must first enter parliament in order for their Federations to be funded adequately. As you ask this, you also ask whether all Ugandans must first enter Parliament in order to get appreciable service delivery.
This is a very dangerous trend that actually negates the true meaning of Parliament which is supposed to have just a few representatives that serve all Ugandans fairly and appreciably. Once all Ugandans can only find acceptable service delivery by they themselves sitting in Parliament, then that is surely something else but no longer a Parliament.
All MPs, especially the sports leaning ones must reverse this trend that is promoting a dangerously selfish Scramble for Parliamentary seats. They must establish a fair funding criteria that delivers enough funds to all Federations fairly. The key phrase here is Fair Funding and this is very different from Equal Funding. Only Federations with adequate annual funding can have meaningful growth and engagement of the dangerously idle youths.
The Writer is a Bush Lawyer, Former President of the Uganda Table Tennis Association (UTTA), & Secretary General of the Union of Uganda Sports Federations & Associations (UUSFA)
