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Amid initial concerns of budget suppression back to UGX 17 billion, Parliament demonstrated its unwavering commitment to sports by maintaining the sports budget and even allocating additional funds.
The unveiling of the national budget for the fiscal year 2023/2024 brought both relief and new developments for the sports sector in Uganda.
Amid initial concerns of budget suppression back to UGX 17 billion, Parliament demonstrated its unwavering commitment to sports by maintaining the sports budget and even allocating additional funds.
The budget for sports received a 2.5% increment, reaching slightly over 48.9 billion shillings for the upcoming financial year.
One notable factor contributing to the overall increment is the allocation of UGX 1.5 billion specifically earmarked for infrastructure development.
There has been a growing cry to protect and improve the existing sports infrastructure, with much of the available land for sports encroached and repossessed as they have remained under developed.
Government recently revealed plans to redevelop the sports complex at Lugogo that houses the Indoor Arena, Cricket Oval, Hockey grounds, the national gym and a hostel complex.
The Indoor Arena has undergone refurbishment recently, but the plan is to build a 15,000 state of the art arena, although such development is not expected to be covered under the current budget.
However, the budget allocation breakdown for the FY 23/24 confirmed reductions in funding for both the Uganda Boxing Federation (UBF) and the Uganda Netball Federation (UNF).
Both federations have been demoted from category 1 to category 2 in the federation classification, and also had their funding immunity removed given financial accountability concerns that arose during an audit of the National Council of Sports (NCS).
UNF and UBF will receive UGX 300 million, sharing six billion shillings with 13 other federations including Table Tennis, Chess, Cycling, Golf, Volleyball, Badminton and Swimming among others.
Conversely, the Federation of Motorsport Clubs of Uganda and the Uganda Rugby Union (URU), enjoyed budgetary boosts increasing their allocations to UGX 3 billion each.
The Federation of Uganda Football Associations (FUFA) continues to receive the largest portion of the sports budget, amounting to UGX 17.1 billion.
Other sports federations, including basketball, cricket, and the Paralympic Committee, will jointly receive 3.6 billion shillings.
Meanwhile, 29 federations will share a budget allocation of 300 million shillings of the UGX 36 billion total allocation to the sports sub-sector.
Notably, a substantial amount of 6.6 billion shillings has been set aside to support Uganda's participation in major international events, including the 2024 Paris Olympics.
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