It seems National Council of Sports reached at the last option and it was on Wednesday 25th October when the sports governing body withdraw the certificate of recognition from the most successful sport of recent in Uganda which is Netball.
According to the letter from NCS, this website has a copy, one of the reasons they gave were that; Uganda Netball Federation failed to settle it’s governance issues, having six bank accounts in Equity bank, failure to disclose to NCS the source of funds and failure to follow the 2012 UNF constitution.
The withdrawal of certificate of recognition from UNF, it means netball will not be getting any funding from government of Uganda and even She Cranes will not be representing Uganda in any international competition.
While addressing media about the issue, UNF elected president Hon Babirye Kityo Sarah revealed that NCS was in a wrong to withdraw the certificate without a serious case against the sport.
“Our license was withdrawn, we believe it was withdrawn unlawfully because there was a court case and also besides that, we have had issues with NCS, we have been in Parliament, PAC, IGG, Attorney General, that means we have issues with NCS.” Stated Babirye on Thursday.
“At one point, Dr. Ogwel was on NBS, a national television and he made a statement that is on record that I am worse than a devil, that can show you the level of hatred and the level of bias, national council officials have at me Babirye as a person.” Babirye stated.
Babirye says that before withdrawing the certificate, they would have first presented the report.
“…..in one of the letters I saw on social media claimed to be it was written by First Lady, it showed that the report was out, Ugandans have been waiting for this report, before we were given a report, is it fair for me Babirye an elected president I leave office to allow investigations, instead of giving me a report and finds, you withdraw the certificate of Netball?, So as Uganda Netball Federation we have opted to go to court.” Babirye.
Now Babirye described their current relationship with NCS and government of Uganda as a divorced marriage but for them they are still want the marriage that’s why they ran to Court.
“The way I can describe this relationship between Uganda Netball Federation and Government of Uganda, we are divorced, Government of Uganda divorced Uganda Netball, so for us who are still interested in the marriage, we have chosen to go legal, we have gone to court, for the court to decide whether we should be given our marriage certificate again or whether we don’t qualify to be married to the government but still as their children, we have a right to play, so netball will be played in Uganda with or without the certificate, our offices are open, we shall have our Normal activities.”
Babirye also asked Brig. Gen. Flavia Byekwaso to stop calling herself the acting president because she (Byekwaso) being serving the interests of the government and the government no longer have interest in Netball, that now Byekwaso is serving whose interests.
