Swimmers to pay for national uniform

A number of top Ugandan swimmers will not make it to the CANA Zone IV swimming championship as the local federation in charge of the sport struggles with financial resources to take a formidable team to Luanda, Angola in early May.

The Uganda Swimming Federation (USF) released a list of nearly 50 swimmers who had a spot on the final team, but all the swimmers were expected to pay $2,500 to cater for their expenses over six days in Luanda. This money caters for the air ticket, uniforms, accommodation and administration costs.

However, because of the dire situation that USF finds itself in, they have now turned to a cross-section of the swimmers’ parents, urging them to find the money needed in under a week from the time the announcement was made.

This is to enable their children take part in the competition, where they will be representing the Uganda flag. Pointing to the short notice, some of the parents of the swimmers we spoke to said the cost was too high for them to afford. Ideally, government is supposed to cater for any athlete who has been selected to represent the country.

That is not happening since USF has no money to foot such a bill. Moses Mwase, the USF boss, said: “We expected to take a full team of 50 swimmers. But as it stands, the budget is crazy. And since we do not have the money, a number of swimmers have opted out because they cannot afford to pay for themselves.”

In addition, Mwase said they will only know the exact number of swimmers that will travel to Angola today. That will depend on which parents can afford or not.

Such a scenario presents a situation where it is possible that the best swimmers in terms of ranking do not travel. About 10 swimmers may travel. Yet, it also raises a question why government does not provide the funds needed by USF, who submit an annual budget to the National Council of Sports (NCS) about their all-year-round international activities. This trip alone was budgeted to cost $125,000 (Shs 462 million).

Attempts to get NCS for comment were futile. In light of that, Mwase said NCS told them that there is a lot of pressure on the resource envelope, which is constrained.

“NCS has been funding us in the past. And their focus is on the bigger global or continental events. With the one in Angola being a zonal one, which is not that big, we had to find private sponsorship. But also that has been a problem because corporate companies prefer to sponsor events that are within the country for mileage purposes.”

In the past, the USF would reimburse the parents who paid for the swimmers, although the reimbursement would not even cover a quarter of the total fees paid. Today, parents are not reimbursed at all. To be fair to USF, the venue for this year’s CANA Zone IV has changed twice.

Initially, the championship was slated to take place in Madagascar. It later changed to Malawi, before being moved to Angola at the end of February. Uganda’s swimming has come of age over the last 10 years. The number of swimmers making the national teams that have participated at championships outside Uganda has gone up over the years.

Last November, a total of 40 Ugandan swimmers participated at CANA Zone III in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. That was the biggest contingent-ever; and the team put up its strongest ever showing on foreign land.

The CANA Zone IV swimming championship in Angola offers one of the stern tests for Uganda’s swimming. The zone attracts continental powerhouses such as South Africa, Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia, Mozambique, with other strong favourites such as Zambia and Botswana.

The championship is a good ground for Ugandan swimmers to test themselves against some of the continent’s best. Kirabo Namutebi has already proven herself on the continent, especially in the 50-metre freestyle, and at one time held the 13-14-year age group African record.

Her Gators’ clubmate, Tara Kisawuzi, 14, is also proving to be a generational talent as she moves closer to conquer the continent in the 50-metre butterfly. But unless the revenue constraints at the USF are dealt with, the sport risks slowing down as top swimmers who cannot afford the fees decide to stay away, and ultimately toy with the idea of quitting the sport altogether.

Smaller sports federations such as USF continue to be ignored by government at the expense of the bigger bodies such as the Federation of Uganda Football Association (Fufa). The football body gobbles a lion’s share of the sports budget, leaving the other federations on crumbs. The sports budget was cut from Shs 47 billion to Shs 17 billion.