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During Q1 of the FY 2022/23, NCS reported to have disbursed UGX 458 million to URU, but the committee said they found out that actually only UGX 224 million was released.
A parliamentary probe into the activities of the National Council of Sports has found glaring inconsistency in its financial reports, with up to UGX 3.9 billion not properly accounted for.
The probe looked into the activities of the NCS for the first two Q1 and Q2 of the FY 2022/23, for which the Ministry of Finance confirmed they had dispatched UGX 19.6 billion (up to 40%) of the total budget allocation to the sports sub sector.
The select committee headed by Hon. Laura Kanushu was convened by the Speaker of Parliament Hon. Anita Among following complaints over the lack funding for the Netball Cranes for the 2022 First Five Netball Championships in New Zealand.
The core purpose of the committee was to ascertain the approved budget for NCS for the FY 2022/23, visa vie the the budgetary amounts communicated by the Ministry of Finance.
The committee also looked to establish the actual budget releases to NCS against the budget appropriated by Parliament for FY 2022/23.
In its report, the committee found that NCS on several occasions failed to provide relevant documentation for its expenditure, while it also found inconsistencies in the reports presented and the actual expenditure.
“The submissions of the National Council of Sports detailing its disbursements to the National Sports Federations had several inconstancies,” the report stated.
“This raised questions as to whether the funds stated therein where actually disbursed, establishing accountabilities of the same and were a cause of suspicion of a possibility of mismanagement of funds by the National Council of Sports.”
The inconsistencies were discovered from NCS’ reporting for expenditure for two international games namely the Commonwealth games in Birmingham and the Islamic Solidarity games in Konya, Turkey.
For example, NCS revealed that they had spent UGX 4.865 billion on the 2022 Commonwealth games, however, reports revealed that only UGX 4.833 billion was spent, with up to UGX 31.9 million not accounted for.
NCS had initially reported that they had spent UGX 1.514 billion on training for 77 athletes that had qualified for the games, but they revised their accountability to reveal that they had spent UGX 1.029 billion on training.
Furthermore, NCS failed to provide proper accountability for participation in the Islamic games, in Konya, Turkey. The Committee was presented with three different figures for the same games.
One figure indicated that UGX 1.177 billion was spent while the other indicated that a total of UGX 1.231 was the expenditure for the games, revealing a difference of UGX 70.9 million.
Meanwhile, NCS General Secretary Dr Bernard Patrick Ogwel while appearing before the committee had told the Committee that UGX 1.160 billion had been spent on the games.
There were also unaccounted for funds for disbursements to the Uganda Rugby Union (URU) for the 2022 Rugby World Cup in South Africa.
NCS reported differing sums regarding its disbursements to URU which were found to be almost half of the sums they had initially reported.
During Q1 of the FY 2022/23, NCS reported to have disbursed UGX 458 million to URU, but the committee said they found out that actually only UGX 224 million was released.
There was a lumpsum of UGX 3.5 billion that had been distributed to 40 federations, to which NCS failed to provide further breakdown of specifically how much was received by each federation.
“The workplan of the NSC on the basis of which funds for federations are released only indicates a breakdown of the budget for 11 out of the 51 registered Federations and associations,” the committee found.
“The other 40 federations were allocated a lumpsum budget rendering it difficult for the Committee to determine what each of the federations was entitled to receive from NCS.”
The report said that whereas the committee requested for evidence of transfer of funds to the National Sports Associations/ Federations, including bank statements and receipts, NCS did not submit this information.
However, it submitted statements for only two months (July and August2022) and letters to the different federations informing them that particular amounts had been transferred to them.
Uganda Boxing Federation and Uganda Netball Federation specifically told the committee that they had been to provide accountability for funds they did not receive.
On other occasions, federations revealed that NCS had actually made expenditures on their behalf.
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