NETBALL: Shinning A Light On The UNF’s Good And Evil

 

Apart from the government, that is responsible for monitoring where it invests money in line to uplifting the citizens of that nation, the Fourth Estate [Media] is another wing that acts as a watchdog for the works of government agencies, organizations and other fields, especially when they involve tax payers’ money.

Well, today, we shine a torch into the game of Netball, especially the first year of Babirye Kityo Sarah’s stint at the helm of the Uganda Netball Federation (UNF) leadership.

For starters, Ms Babirye and her team came in power on 5th June 2021, meaning that she has been in the driving seat of the game now for a year and two months plus some days. She came with a twelve (12) points’ manifesto when searching for trust from the stakeholders in the game of Netball. 

For reminders, below are the eleven of the twelve points that headlined her bid for the top leadership office in the federation:

✓ Securing a home for the Netball family in Uganda.

✓ Taking Netball to the grassroots in Uganda.

✓ Marketing and sponsorship of the game of Netball.

✓ Netball Facility development in the country.

✓ Recognizing and awarding excellency in Netball.

✓ Building the capacity of Netball stakeholders.

✓ Introducing Corporate Netball.

✓ Establishment of a Netball Secretariat in line with the UNF.

✓ Strengthening culture through Netball.

✓ Promotion of Equality in the game of Netball.

✓ Proper Accountability. 

Of course, as expected, you can’t achieve all the twelve objectives in space of just 440 days when you, in actual sense, have four years in office, and would probably want to have another term.

However, as watchdogs, we have to monitor the progress of the leadership, as we need to know the stumbling blocks that hindered Ms Babirye from achieving all the objectives, and also the driving force that helped her to hit the success bar in some of them.

Before going to the signs of her success as the president, of which some are clearly visible to the public eye, let’s first go into the challenges that have hindered Babirye from achieving ultimate success.

Challenges Babirye faced as the president of the UNF:

It’s true, Ms Babirye found Ugandan Netball ranked seventh on the world scene, but the number never represented the leadership and the running of the business on ground.

Internal wrangles were the order of the day and amazingly, they were fueled by external forces. 

The fact is that the previous regime, which was under the leadership of Ms Susan Anek, never wanted to leave office, though the constitution was not supporting them. More so, some top officials at the National Council of Sports (NCS) never wanted the leadership to change, but Ms Babirye’s coming caught them off guard. 

Wanting to be loyal, straight forward, and over ambitious could be one of the reasons that dragged Ms Babirye into the fights with some top officials at NCS and some at Africa Netball.

The Rock trip to South Africa:

First up, according to our confidential sources, it all started with the Rock [National Netball Male team] trip to South Africa in 2021. NCS revealed that they gave 100 million shillings to the contingent, but in actual sense, it was less, and yet the NCS asked for the accountability of 100 million from the UNF.

The Namibia 2021 Saga:

The other saga emerged in November 2021, the trip to Namibia, involving the Pent Series and Africa Netball Championship money. That trip dragged Ms Babirye into more problems, and if she wasn’t smart enough, and with the help of God maybe, she wouldn’t be in office by now.

The first report we received showed that Ms Babirye misbehaved while in Namibia and put the nation’s pride in dispute, and the report continued to reveal that Africa Netball wrote a letter to the Minister of Education and Sports, who doubles as the First Lady, Hon Janet Kataha Museveni, and the letter was asking the Honorable Minister to punish Ms Babirye for indiscipline and if the First Lady wasn’t a listening, smart Lady, Babirye wouldn’t be in office by now, per say, the First Lady took time and gave ears to both parties. 

However, after the games, Ms Babirye gave a different version of the saga, highlighting that she was fighting for the rights of the National flag, saying that South Africa was playing syndicate, something that Malawi also complained about. 

With her report, the other questions emerged, like, why did Africa Netball rush to write to the Education Minister for Uganda before writing to the committee that was organizing the championship or the sports governing body in Uganda or the State Minister for Sports by then, Hon Hamson Obua who was also in Nambia?

Anek Vs Babirye saga:

The former UNF president and now the NCS Board Member, Ms Susan Anek, in simple terms, first refused to officially hand over office to the new federation president. Earlier, we informed you that elections took place in June 2021, but the hand over came in September 2021. This handover saga saw NCS mouth muted, as they never came in to resolve the issues, with only a WhatsApp group created to iron out those issues, and it was the Africa Netball boss, Cecilia Molokwane, who was the central to bringing about the settlement, though it also didn’t work for both parties.

Little did Ms Babirye know that in one way or the other, some NCS officials, that is, Ms Susan Anek and Africa Netball President, Cecilia Molokwane, were of the same agenda, that is, to fail her efforts, until the WhatsApp message screenshot that went viral revealed the dirty play of both Anek and Molokwane.

In the screenshot, Ms Anek sent Ms Molokwane a message assuring her that Ms Babirye and her team would soon will be history.

In the AGM, that was not attended by any NCS official despite being informed in time, Netball bosses banned Ms Susan Anek out of the game of netball for life, though, days later, NCS announced her as their Board Member in charge of Netball. 

Babirye Vs some Executive Members:

While coming to power, Ms Babirye and her team said that they will establish a functioning secretariat, but along the way, they got misunderstandings and three of the executive members dragged Ms Babirye to the courts of law, citing that she was taking over their responsibilities, though, later, it was found out that the “external forces” were behind them. The officials we are talking about were; Mr Yahaya Ssengabi, Ms Amina Mande and Mr Richard Muhumuza.

Commonwealth Games preparation money:

Before looking at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games, for starters, UNF is the only federation that has never received any quarterly release from NCS, apart from the tournament money, which also hindered the progress of this federation.

Now about the just concluded Commonwealth Games, where the She Cranes finished fifth (5th), the best finish ever for She Cranes in this tournament.

The government revealed that it had secured 7.1 billion shillings for the Commonwealth Games preparations and allowances for Team Uganda. Netball had a budget of 250 million shillings.

UNF received only 111 million, but NCS sent that money to the abandoned UNF Stanbic Bank account, and the current regime failed to get that money until they got help from UOC. In one of her interviews, Ms Babirye revealed that they presented a new bank account to NCS, who adamantly refused to acknowledge the new account without giving any reason, which made Hon. Babirye to think that NCS is fighting her as a person.

And by the publication of this piece, UNF hadn’t received the She Cranes residential preparation money, and they are not sure whether they will ever receive it.

After finishing 5th in the Commonwealth Games, and hence qualifying to the Netball World Cup, the She Cranes were received by none of the NCS officials, apart from the security guards at the offices, who informed them to walk away with 50,000/= (fifty thousand shillings only) as transport before receiving their allowances, which are just among the many shabby highlights in the unfortunate She Cranes story.

Successes of Hon. Babirye and her team in the space of 440 days:

Amidst all challenges, Ms Babirye and her team strived to see some successes, especially those that sit in their manifesto.

With equality in netball, the Male Netball team The Rock, was formed, and took part in the 2021 International Male Netball Championship held in South Africa and they finished second.

Like it was in their manifesto, a functioning Secretariat was formed.

In 2021, they won the Pent Series, and came second in the Africa Netball Championship. Due to their great performance in those two tournaments, Uganda managed to move from seventh to sixth place in the World rankings.

With grassroot development manifestation, the federation introduced U12 Netball, Street Netball and U16 Netball Championships. The U12 Championship was held in December 2021, Street netball came in early 2022, and the U16 Championship coming in mid this year, with even regional tours being held in June this year. 

Point 3 of the 12 points was to market the game and get sponsorships, something they have already started on, and so far, they have two (2) sponsors in GoTV and Plascon, and that of MTN is in the pipelines.

At the omega of their first year, the leadership of the federation launched a fundraising campaign to build a home for the girl dominated sport, and 130 million was collected out of the five (5) billion shillings needed to start on Phase One.

The visibility of the game increased, especially in the media, after they had a successful East Africa Netball Championship, accompanied by the She Cranes’ success in Birmingham, and the professionalization of the National League.

In terms of awarding excellency, the best performers of 2021 were awarded, which was also a success for the federation’s leadership.

In the 2022/23 financial year, Netball was allocated three (3) billion shillings “ring-fenced money”, but the question remains, will they receive at least 70% of that? 

Currently the sports sector got a new Minister for State in Hon. Peter Ogwang, one of the workaholic ministers in the current cabinet, besides him being workaholic, he needs to pay keen interest at the reports coming from federation heads than the NCS, that’s if he wants to resolve especially the financial scandals in the sports sector. 

“Just a point of view”