GOVT FREEZES OVER E3M SPORTS GRANT!

MBABANE – The 31 sports associations in the country had to make do with just over E1 million in the past government’s fiscal year 2013/14.

The associations, most of which had to halt international participation due to lack of funding, only shared E1 457 558.43 during the period under review. This follows the Sports, Culture and Youth Affairs Ministry withholding E3 595 660.00.

This was funding that was due for release for the third quarter which is the period running from October to December 2013. The startling revelation is contained in the Sports Ministry’s Annual Performance Report 2013/14 which was debated in Parliament’s House of Assembly on Thursday.

The only funds that were released to the Council were those for the first and second quarter respectively.
“The Council only received subventions for the first and second quarter. Subvention for the third quarter was withheld due to court litigation,” explains the report.

Meanwhile, Government’s subvention to the Sports Council, which the National Sports Policy unsuccessfully attempted to turn into the parastatal as it categorises it as Category A enterprise was E7 191 000.
However, an actual income of E3 595 340 was all the Council received. This means over E2 million may have been spent running the Council and paying its personnel which takes a bulk of the stagnant E7.1m budget allocation.

“A total of E1 457 558.43 was disbursed to various sports associations during the period under review,” reads the report.
It further states that activities in the first and second (April to September 2013) quarter went well but the subvention got derailed in the third quarter as a result of a contention regarding the status of the organisation, a matter which was referred to court by the Council Board.

“It was also on which leadership body (Board) was legitimate, that is, the Board appointed by the then Minister or the one elected by associations” Unfortunately, due to this impasse the Ministry could not release the remaining quarterly subventions to Council resulting in activities being compromised,” explains the report.

Our sister newspaper, The Times daily edition, reported recently that operations were grounded at the Sports Council due to lack of funding. It was also reported that sports associations had to suspend international participation in the year under review due to limited resources.
Presently, the ministry has said it was viewing all options following the court’s ruling in favour of the associations’ Board in as far as its relationship with the Council under the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was still workable. “We’ve discussed that with Sports Council as well, otherwise we did withhold the third quarter subvention,” said the Ministry’s Principal Secretary Sicelo Dlamini when reached last night.

He said his ministry also received the Council’s request as mentioned above earlier this week but it was still under consideration. He could not say if there was any guarantee that the money would be released or not which would then mean slightly over E1m will remain frozen. “I can’t go into whether it’s guaranteed or not the money will be released but what I can say is we do have a request for funds from the Council,” he said.
On another note, Members of Parliament (MPs) lamented the stagnant budget allocation for sports saying it was not enough for the new Minister David ‘Cruiser’ Ngcamphalala to achieve anything.

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