Every effort must be made to dispense with a case in the High Court stopping the National Olympic Committee of Kenya (NOCK) from holding elections. As long as the case drags on, some NOCK activities will be curtailed. Already, the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the global body that superintends over all national Olympic committees, has said it will continue withholding funds from NOCK until elections are held.
The IOC seems to hold the view that the court case is a ruse by some individuals to deliberately block NOCK from the exercise. That matter cannot be addressed at this point because it would introduce judicial arguments about the merits or demerits of the court case.
What is on court records is that the Kenya Tae Kwon-do Association (KTA) asked the High Court to block the polls, arguing that the sports registrar had deliberately withheld its registration certificate, thereby denying it the right to vote.
KTA’s plea was granted by the High Court. The court case aside, the need to clean up house in NOCK is urgent. Not only are its senior officials mired in a string of financial scandals, the indiscretions by the NOCK bosses now threaten to overshadow the spectacular achievements borne out of the sweat of our sports men and women.
It is clear that the status quo favours NOCK’s incumbent office bearers — they continue to hold high office even when the government and the IOC are agreed that they are unfit to serve. The new danger is that these officials may continue mismanaging funds from sponsorships that have not been withheld.
At some point, NOCK’s biggest sponsors — sports apparel manufacturers Nike — will need to determine if its continued funding of the Olympic committee’s activities is prudent or morally sound.
Nevertheless the focus now must be to get in a new team to run the show at NOCK. With this in mind, stakeholders must work on the premise that it will take a special breed of leaders to keep our sports clean. This is what stakeholders must fight for.
The Standard Group Plc is a
multi-media organization with investments in media platforms spanning newspaper
print operations, television, radio broadcasting, digital and online services. The
Standard Group is recognized as a leading multi-media house in Kenya with a key
influence in matters of national and international interest.
join