PS’s plans good enough, but….

By Okoth Omulo

Kenya has already started planning for the 2012 Olympics. A committee has been set up to make a report on what needs to be done to ensure an even better performance in London in four years.

While I fully support Sports Permanent Secretary, Kinuthia Murugu’s foresight, I must from the onset air my reservations to this ‘noble’ idea of forming committees.

These are just cash cows for God knows what. But it may require somebody like the PS to take a personal interest to ensure more work is done than mere propensity to draw allowances for sitting down in some office to discuss very basic issues.

I served in the Kenya Football Federation Caretaker Committee and I am talking from an informed position, not mere hearsay.

Kenyans love something called sitting allowances even for work done in half-baked manner. Much of the task that was to be done under the KFF committee was not accomplished because people put personal gain ahead of national calling to correct the myriad messes visited on the beautiful game.

Talking of Kenya and the Olympics, one just sees athletes and the medals they will win, the allowances officials will draw here and abroad and other goodies that come along the way.

Kenyans are sitting on a comfort zone called ‘athletics medals’. No effort has been made to diversify potential areas of medal hunt despite hours of discussions on the same.

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Athletes will always win medals despite little or no funding by the Government. What help did the Government give Pamela Jelimo, for instance, to have won Olympic gold, African title and IAAF Golden League Jackpot, all in one year?

What role did the Government play in developing swimmers, David and Jason Dunford, or four years previously, Kamar Shah and the Donde sisters? Things just fall in place for us.

The PS should insist on state funding for sports, set up a sports excellence training camp equipped with technical and other staff for gifted sportspeople.The Chinese identify talent from five years. Most European countries run football competitions from under-12.

UK sent a delegation of 311 to Beijing Olympics. They won medals in sailing, rowing, cycling and athletics. By finishing fourth on the medal table, they far surpassed a target set by UK Sport, the distributor of Lottery funds to elite athletes.

Current budget

Dubbed ‘The Great Haul of China’, Team UK won 47 medals (19, 13, 15). The Government will pour another £400m (Sh52b) into Olympic sport in preparation for 2012. When he was the Chancellor of Exchequer, PM Gordon Brown promised £100m (Sh13b) under a £600m (Sh78b) six-year funding package, a fifth of which was to come from the private sector.

We can’t compare ourselves with the British, what with a paltry financial allocation from the Treasury. Some top superstars like David Beckham or Rio Ferdinand can single-handedly foot the bill in Kenya’s Ministry of Youth and Sport from their endorsement revenue, let alone prize money and salaries. which range between Sh10m and Sh17m!

The current budget’s net estimate for the Ministry of Youth and Sport is Sh4b. Department of Sport has been allocated Sh600m, Youth Development Training Sh1.2b and National Youth Service Sh1.7b.

Much as I welcome PS Murugu’s ‘Back to basics’ approach, our Government must appreciate that sport is as important to the country as the military hardware stuck in the high seas, or the country’s energy and education requirements.

The National Lottery cannot come to fruition until the Sports Bill is passed. Many other things can only succeed when the bill is enacted into law.

And by focusing on the Olympics alone, we are missing the point. Football is the most popular sport on the land. It will require an even greater attention as Harambee Stars prepare for the final round of 2010 World Cup qualification.

Will the PS and the Ministry mandarins fix this football issue so that we start the year without the Fifa-backed or Government-registered KFF and things like that?

How are Olympic solidarity scholarships distributed? Are they given to loyalists to vote for the current office or they are distributed to sports on a holistic basis?The PS has a huge task ahead and I can only wish him the best.