UBF decry of meager finances ahead of schools championship

Despite shortage of funds, Uganda boxing federation (UBF) President Moses Muhangi has assured the boxing fraternity that this year’s schools championship will go on at the highest level of organisation and competition. Muhangi says that the federation will go on to find resources from the sport’s lovers since the Shs125m quarterly allocation to them by government through National Council of sports (NCS) was already used. “Our account is reading zero and thus we have to borrow money which of course comes with interest rate. Sometimes we fetch into our pockets for UBF events to take place and I must assure you that the schools championship will be bigger than the previous one,” noted Muhangi on Thursday. “The quarterly Shs125m funding from NCS was even not enough to organise just one event –the national open. This is why I raise the voice when football wants a lion’s share of Shs10bn from the Shs17bn NCS budget whilst NCS retains Shs2bn for administrative costs –leaving other 47 sports federations to unfairly share mere Shs4bn. The medalists at the Commonwealth, Olympics, World and Africa championships are spotted from competitions like the schools championship at a tender age, but we have no funds to facilitate such,” added Muhangi. He also vowed to petition Parliament next week over NCS’s ‘unfair’ allocation of funds to sports federations, having received no formal reply from their petition to the First Lady and also minister for education and sports whom they earlier petitioned. “We want to exhaust all the avenues before reaching the Head of state, but we shall soon reach him because even FUFA claim to have been given the money they ask for by the president,” noted Muhangi. The schools championship will be held next weekend from March 23-31 at MTN Arena, Lugogo with over 50 schools confirming participation. Gong DJ Academy, Street Finance, Top Boy promotions, UNAIDS, Uganda Aids Commission, Aids information center are the championship partners.