Kenya’s participation at the 2016 Olympics has been wracked by numerous embarrassing scandals that have exposed extensive rot in the country’s sports administration, most notably in the Ministry of Sports, Culture and the Arts headed by Dr. Hassan Wario, EGH. Dr. Wario has so far refused to take responsibility for any of the issues raised. #WarioMustGo is a movement that insists that we do better for our sports heroes, and for the future of sports, culture and the arts in Kenya. The nonsense arising from the Olympics included:
READ ALSO: A Website Dedicated to Send WARIO Home was Launched on 1st Sept at www.wariomustgo.com
THE MONEY
The Ministry of Sports wrote to the Director General Sports Kenya, Gordon Oluoch, requesting for 1.5 million dollars ( Ksh150 million) for facilitation of the games. East African Breweries gave Ksh71m while a betting company contributed Ksh 40m rounding the total to Ksh261m. All of this is to say that money was clearly available and had been allocated for the team and their official facilitators to have a comfortable travel to and stay in Rio. This, however did not happen because:
THE JOY RIDERS
Kenya was officially represented by 52 athletes, 14 rugby players, 3 boxers, 2 swimmers, 1 archer, 1 weightlifter and 1 judoka. There were 30 technical team members (doctors, physiotherapists, counselors, coaches etc). Others expected in the entourage included 14 Steering Committee members, 14 from NOCK, 7 administrative staff and 2 officials from Treasury making the total figure 178. There were also government-accredited media on the list. But the final list was bloated with joyriders including relatives (Kipchoge Keino’s son attended in an as yet undefined role), friends, girlfriends and bodyguards of team officials etc topping 250.
ALLOWANCES
Team members also reported issues with their allocated allowances. All this brought to light the comfortable amounts of money allocated to the parliamentary delegation that attend all international sporting events (the combined Senate and National Assembly committees on Labour and Social Welfare, whose travel budget included additional staff members to facilitate their stays, daily allowances of $500 and business class return tickets. It must be noted that none of them had any reported issues with ticket allocations or accommodation.
THE NIKE KITS
The men’s kit as allocated by Nike consisted of the following items: two singlets (track athletes), one unitard (sprinters), three tailwind tee-shirts, three pairs of socks, two pairs of cargo shorts, one stadium jacket, one flat brim cap, two warm up teeshirts, two pairs of warm up tights, two woven jackets, one drift cotton teeshirt, one feather-light cap, one roller bag (suitcase), one vapor back-pack, one gym sack, two pairs of half tights and one tailwind cap. (Details on the rest of the team kits here.)
Hon. Wesley Korirgot only a couple of tee-shirts and one pair of shorts (in the wrong size). He was also able to confirm that sunglasses and sandals had also been allocated and all supplied to NOCK but not given to the athletes. This fiasco is currently being investigated by the Directorate of Criminal Investigation under the Serious Crimes Unit, and so far some arrests have been made. DCI officers also raided NOCK offices at the 2000 Plaza, Mombasa Road where they recovered hundreds of cartons containing Team Kenya uniforms meant for Rio Olympic Games. There was also social media uproar when photos surfaced of Kipchoge Keino’s daughter in law and her children in recent official Team Kenya merchandise.
DOPING SCANDAL
Coach John Anzrah and Manager Michael Rotich were both sent home from Rio 2016in disgrace for doping-related issues – Mr. Anzrah impersonating an athlete and giving in his own urine samples, while Mr. Rotich solicited bribes to help foreign athletes evade doping tests. All this comes at a time then Kenya hurriedly passed new anti-doping legislature to be allowed to participate in this year’s Olympics, amid investigations from the International Association of Athletics Federation, the World Anti-Doping Agency and the International Olympic Committee.
THE FALLOUT
All these systemic issues have caused Kenya to be internationally shamed and spotlit for all the wrong reasons. Dr. Hassan Wario has gone on record blaming cartels and the independence of NOCK from government interference for the scandal, but has since disbanded NOCK and transferred their function to the government parastatal Sports Kenya. He has also named a team to investigate the Rio debacle. The names of members of the Rio Probe committee are however suspect, because, among them are people who have been indicted previously in similar scandals surrounding poor team treatment and disorganization in other international games, such as the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2011 Maputo All Africa Games, the2012 London Olympics, and the 2015 Brazzaville All Africa Games. One such member of the Rio Probe team is Charles Nyaberi. Furthermore, Stephen Soi, the Olympic team chef de mission, and James Chacha NOCK assistant secretary, had both both been singled out by previous reports as unfit to participate in other missions. The two are currently under investigation.
NOCK chairman Dr. Kipchoge Keino, dogged with controversy around these Olympics, has refused to resign over the fiasco. He says that he has no reason to since Kenya was first in Africa and came home with an enviable medal count (see journalist Roy Gachuhi’s dire prediction of this very defense here) and claims that if he is arrested the International Olympic Committee will take the opportunity to ban Kenya from the Olympics.
WHY THIS MATTERS
Sports, culture and the arts are incredibly important to Kenya. Soft power is essential to grow esteem in the community of nations, and Kenya has hundreds of sportspeople, cultural practitioners and artists who grow the reputation of the country and solidify our unique national identity by consistently linking our name to excellence, quality, breaking world records, and stellar performance.
The self-described mandate of the ministry is “to be a global leader in the provision of sports, arts and cultural services and promotion of the Kenyan film industry for sustainable growth and employment creation.” It plans to do this via its mission “to develop, promote, preserve and disseminate Kenya’s cultural and arts heritage; promotion of sports; development of the Kenyan film industry through formation and implementation of policies, programmes and projects for improved livelihood of the Kenyan people.”
The Ministry must therefore be at the forefront ensuring that government takes matters in this arena as seriously as possible. He/she must be committed to co-creating policy with relevant stakeholders and implementing practice that is in line with the noble mandates the government has set for themselves. The head of this Ministry must be directly accountable to sports, culture and arts practitioners, their facilitators and their representatives in matters pertaining to their treatment as they represent the country in various fora. The Ministry must coordinate the Semi-Autonomous Government Agencies (SAGAs) namely Sports Kenya, the Kenya Academy of Sports, the National Sports Fund,theNational Museums of Kenya, the , Kenya Cultural Centre, the Kenya Film Commission, the Kenya Film Classification Board, the Kenya National Library Service, the National Heroes Council, the Anti-Doping Agency Kenya and the Natural Products Industry Agency. All in all, it is imperative that the head of such an important ministry have a 21st century vision for this country’s performance and accumulation of national and international esteem.
In all this, Dr. Wario has failed us, and #WarioMustGo.