The storm that has engulfed Football Kenya Federation (FKF) following Sport CS Amina Mohamed’s audit order of the body played out on the floor of the Senate yesterday.
Ms Amina came under a hail of fire simultaneously launched on the floor of the Senate and unrefined vitriol from an array of twitter hashtags on the day she was expected to receive the auditors’ report.
The FKF is under investigation by the Directorate of Criminal Investigation (DCI) for alleged financial impropriety since they lost a case in which they had sought to stop the sleuths from probing it.
Yesterday, Makueni Senator Mutula Kilonzo Jr sought a statement from the Senate Committee on Labour and Social Welfare over what he described as “an impromptu inspection on Football Federation of Kenya.”
In his submission, Sen. Mutula Jr said the Committee’s should: “State reasons why Football Kenya a statutory body under the law was not issued with a notice of inspection citing nature of the inspection, the documents required, material or evidence relied upon by the CS in making the decision.”
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Mutula Jr added: “The statement should state whether the CS is aware that the said Inspection team largely composed of officers from the Criminal Investigation Department and National Intelligence Service.”
Nandi Senator Samson Cherargei asked CS Amina and senior Sports Ministry officials to resign for presiding over what he called as “mega corruption.”
“Madam Speaker would believe that in the Sports Fund, one of the items they have allocated is Sh31 million for woodball. Woodball means ‘mchezo wa mbao’ yet there are several stadiums that have gobbled millions of money yet they do not even meet Fifa standards. And now the same stadiums have been banned. They cannot even host friendly matches,” Sen. Cherargei said.
“I want to challenge that CS Amina Mohamed and senior officials be fires,” the Nandi senator said.
Garissa Senator Abdulkadir Haji, however, came to the rescue of CS Amina saying that the Sports Ministry had good intentions of ordering for the auditing of FKF.
“I’m a little bit taken aback by the comments of most of the senators, who have come out strongly against the CS and I believe the intention of the Ministry of Sports is to audit FKF for the funds they have been receiving,” Sen. Haji said.
“I fail to understand why the individuals at FKF are against the audit. Instead of calling for the resignations of individuals, maybe we should to tackle FKF based on the rules and regulations of Fifa so that as a country, we don’t fall foul with operations of Fifa.
“Since its formation, FKF have been given a free hand to develop the game of football, but what we have seen is that the national team is not still performing very well. I don’t know whether to blame FKF or Sports Ministry, but something is wrong somewhere. We need to investigate it,” added the Garissa Senator.
Nominated Senator representing Persons with Disabilities (PWD) Senator Getrude Musuruve said FKF should not be disbanded and instead action be taken against culpable individuals.
“There is need for us to ensure that FKF is not disbanded and sport in this country should be supported. If investigations are done, let those who are mismanaging FKF be brought to account for their actions,” Sen. Musuruve.
Nairobi Senator Johnson Sakaja, who chairs the Senate standing committee on Labour and Social Welfare said the CS should not take the decision to disband FKF for it would lead to a ban by Fifa.
“No one person should take an action that will lead to Kenya being banned by Fifa. The CS for Sports should appear before the Senate on Thursday and we are immediately signing off a letter barring her from taking action against FKF,” Sakaja said.
Elgeyo Marakwet Senator Kipchumba Murkomen said the Committee report should also indicate how much funds from ther Sports Fund had been alloacted for sports .
“We have a problem in the Ministry of Sport and management of sport in this country. We would like to know how much of Sports Fund is being used for sports because we are told billions of money that was meant for sports is now being used in Universal Healthcare,” Sen. Murkomen said.
The Senate proceedings came amid a torrent of trolls on twitter on CS Amina for ordering an audit of the football body.
Several twitter hastags urging CS Amina to back down on the audit have been trending for the last three days.
