Last week, the Budget of Uganda for the financial year July 2026 to June 2027 was read. For the first time in our sporting history, Uganda shillings 191 billion was allocated as non wage recurrent expenditure for the sports sector. Unless something changes drastically, this is the allocation that has always been disbursed to national sports federations and associations to support their annual calendar activities.
This is the highest ever recorded funding for the federations of Uganda. For this, Sports Minister Peter Ogwang, the Chairman of the National Council of Sports (NCS) Ambrose Tashobya, together with the General Secretary Dr Bernard Patrick Ogwel, must be greatly applauded for their tireless efforts that have finally convinced Parliament and the Executive to provide such funding for the federations.
Dr Ogwel in particular must be commended for his hard work and highly organised approach, which has seen the preparation and presentation of strong and convincing documents. He holds two PhDs and a certificate for strong organisational performance from the National Planning Authority. He recently led a team that presented Uganda’s bid to host the 2031 African Games, a bid that helped Uganda secure hosting rights against seasoned sporting giants such as Nigeria.
Thanks to Dr Ogwel and his team, Uganda will host these Games for the very first time in its sporting history, opening enormous development opportunities for the country. About three years ago, I wrote an article titled “Cut Dr Ogwel Some Slack.” Many thought I was praising him excessively, but today the reality is becoming clearer that the Ugandan sports sector is fortunate to have its first PhD holder serving as General Secretary at NCS.
In that article, I warned about people who were overly interfering in Dr Ogwel’s work as General Secretary of NCS by exerting opportunistic pressure on him. Some individuals had learned how to use minor errors at NCS, combined with their positions and connections in government, to push undesirable positions onto Dr Ogwel and, by extension, affect the operations of the entire institution in its mission to develop Ugandan sport.
One such outcome was the allocation of inadequate funding to several federations, with others receiving extremely small budgets. For purposes of forward momentum, I will not go into the details of who received what. What matters here is that there is now a clear opportunity for NCS to do things the right way and to position sport as a vibrant and attractive sector of Uganda’s economy.
With Uganda shillings 191 billion and about 50 federations, simple mathematics shows that each federation could comfortably receive at least 1 billion as a bare minimum. That would amount to about 50 billion in total, leaving 141 billion available for additional support to those that justifiably require more or those classified as priority sports.
The argument that some federations lack the capacity to absorb funding of up to 1 billion per year is unfair and unreasonable. Any federation with absorption challenges today is largely a result of years of underfunding that prevented the development of internal structures needed to manage such resources effectively.
All federations should be allocated substantial budgets because each one has similar core needs, including offices, staff, audited books, national leagues, equipment, training facilities, and participation in foreign competitions. The real issue in some federations lies in how funds are spent and accounted for. This challenge has a clear remedy, which is to require all federations to first establish functional secretariats with accountants, chief executives, procurement officers, legal officers, and other professionals before any funding is disbursed.
For the record, no institution in Uganda can survive financial disorder if elected political leaders are left to handle all spending and accounting responsibilities, whether at NCS or even within the Uganda Olympic Committee. All institutions require a clear separation between political leadership and professional administration. This is the missing link in some federations, and NCS now has a strong opportunity to address it.
Section 6(g) of the Sports Regulations 2025, also referred to as Statutory Instrument No. 24 of 2025, stipulates that all federations must appoint and supervise a secretariat. It further states that federations shall implement decisions of the General Assembly through their secretariats.
It therefore follows that enforcing the appointment of secretariats would not only help prevent mismanagement but also ensure compliance with the new Sports Act of Uganda. The Act effectively makes it improper for executive boards to continue running the day to day affairs of sports federations. This makes it even clearer that NCS should provide a bare minimum funding package to enable each federation to establish a secretariat, offices, and the basic operational capacity required to function effectively.
The writer is a bush lawyer, former President of the Uganda Table Tennis Association (UTTA), Secretary General of the Union of Uganda Sports Federations and Associations (UUSFA), and Board Member of the Uganda Olympic Committee (UOC).
