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{
"id": 1556316,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1556316/?format=api",
"text_counter": 258,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Sifuna",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "I have not met Senators who confirmed to me that their county governments actually allocate money to support registered sports associations in their counties. So, what we did then, we agreed that we were going to bring an amendment to the Sports Act to make sure or to mandate counties to set aside a minimum amount of money every single financial year to support registered county sporting associations. That is exactly what this Bill seeks to do. You will remember, just by way of background, we had a sports fund that had been set up. We had a sports fund under the Public Finance Management Act called the Sports, Arts and Social Development Fund. In fact, the aim of that Fund was to support development of grassroots sporting infrastructure and setting up of sporting academies in all our constituencies. Unfortunately, immediately the powers that be started seeing how much money was coming to that Fund, amendments were made to the Sports Fund to now include utilisation of the money in the process of the Fund, 60 per cent of the Fund went to what they called social development, including universal health care. I believe that is where the rain started beating us because immediately, you divert funds meant for the arts and sports, we end up messing sports in this county. We all know 60 per cent means that we have a very insufficient funding for sporting activities. Now, what we want to achieve with this Bill is to fund the basic activities of these sporting associations. It is very simple; the Nairobi County Boxing Association cannot be walking with a begging bowl to the offices of Senators, Members of Parliament and MCAs to ask for Kshs117,000 every time they have a tournament to attend. Due to the importance of sports, we have proposed in this particular Bill to start with a very low figure. If you look at Clause 55(4)(c), you will see that the object of the Fund is to provide funds to support registered county sporting associations. Clause 54(b) says- “There shall be paid into the county sports associations fund one per cent of all monies paid into the county revenue fund.” That means one per cent. I will give you the example of Nairobi. This House sends Kshs20 billion to Nairobi as equitable share. We want one per cent of that amount to be set aside for this special fund to support sporting activities. It is not a lot of money, but it is also not nothing. Money that is received as own source revenue is also supposed to be swept into the county revenue fund. We have also provided for loans, grants or donations from the national Government or international agencies for purposes of supporting county sports associations. I can assure you that for as long as there is a legal framework and a fund which is ring-fenced to supporting the activities of registered sporting associations in the counties, we will have a lot of support, even from international organizations. We have seen in the additional allocations Bill, various international agencies that are interested in specific areas, be it health or slum upgrading, will come through for these counties to support those specific ones. We had the occasion to undertake public participation on this particular Bill in Nairobi. I was very impressed by the turnout before the Committee of Labour and Social Welfare. At that particular time, it was chaired by the Hon. Julius Murgor. We received a number of delegations, some of whom we did not even know existed. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, there was the athletic stakeholders who came before that Committee. We have the football stakeholders. Of course, the boxing stakeholders came. They were the original reason we brought this amendment. There were also stakeholders from Nairobi Skating Association, Judo, Volleyball, Parasports, a sport called Tchouk ball, which we did not The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and Audio Services, Senate."
}