By 
Just a year ago, The Uganda Netball team defeated hosts SouthAfrica to finish as the best placed African team, 5th the Netball World Cup.
Sadly, the celebrations weren’t long-lived due to the chaos back home, too bad that this team was almost stopped from going to the World cup.
But how did we get to that?
On 5th June, 2021 Hon Sarah Babirye Kityo was voted into a 4 year term as President of the Uganda Netball Association, a very special evening for her in the indoor arena in Lugogo because the win came at the back of a loss in the Bukoto East parliamentary elections.
The next months were a cocktail of in-house wrangles including two executive members dragging the federation to court. Any hopes of serenity in the game were broken in February 2023 when the National Council for Sports accused the federation of failing to account for funds.
In response, Kityo said she had been asked to account for more than 425million yet the federation had only received around 186 million shillings in the financial year of 2021/22 for the Africa Pent series in Namibia and Netball Championships in South Africa.
Any other wrangles could have been undercards, time proved that the main fight was between UNF president and NCS general secretary Bernard Patrick Ogwel, whom Kityo accused of asking for kickbacks from She Cranes allocated funds.
Pointing out the 2021 Male Netball Championship where Ogwel reportedly demanded 40 out of the 100 million given to the team. UNF vice president, Richard Muhumuza and general secretary, Amina Mande paid Ogwel Shs 30 million which was meant for the players’ allowances going against the federation’s stand, as Kityo alleged.
If there was any truth to that, it was exposed in a few months later when deputy Inspector General of Government (IGG) Patricia Okiria Achan ordered Ogwel to return shs. 100m, the 30m he had received and another 70m from inflated flight tickets for the team to Namibia according to investigations.
Things got really ugly between the two. “That woman is worse than a devil, that’s my description of her.” Ogwel had no kind words for Kityo during a television interview.
Some one had to call for a cease fire and that was Min. of Sports & Education, the first Lady Janet Museveni who twice invited NCS & federation members to statehouse for resolution of issues, escalation from finances to a National Team player accusing federation president and her spouse of sexually abusing her. Kityo was then asked to step aside for three months to allow investigations go on.
All this happened only a few weeks before the team set off to SouthAfrica for the World cup, luckily enough the she Cranes looked less like these happenings had impacted their performance. Putting on a remarkable show.
Exactly after 3months of her suspension, Kityo showed up at the federation offices in Old Kampala but was blocked by security officers. “I didn’t get any letter of Suspension so I didn’t need one to get back.” Kityo when asked why she did that.
In reaction, the first lady suspended her indefinitely and Brig. Flavia Byekwaso who, her vice president who was in charge even during her first suspension was left incahrge of the federation leadership.
On October 25th, NCS withdrew the Certificate of Recognition from the Uganda Netball Federation (UNF) hinging their decision on failure to disclose sources of funding and different bank accounts opened by the federation without informing NCS which claimed that the federation used forged and unauthorized documents to open these accounts.
To keep the federation afloat, World Netball through a letter from president Dame Liz Nicholl to NCS chairman Ambrose Tashobya in November confirmed a Normalisation Committee lead by Moses Mwase, with; Leticiah Namutebi, NCS’s Cecilia Anyacoit, and former National Team captain Peace Proscovia, the Athlete Representative for the Uganda She Cranes.
Part of the committee’s inaugural decisions was withdrawing the she Cranes from Africa Netball Championships, denying them a chance to defend their title worse even, Uganda had won the tournament hosting rights in April but it had to be moved to Botswana due to the situation at the time.
Kityo was remanded to Luzira by the anti corruption court on Miss management of charges that amounted to 186m.
Adding to her previous charges in May charges of obtaining money by false pretense. “Those were the worst days of my life.” -Kityo about her time behind bars.
As a glimmer of hope, the federation’s leadership at under Brig. Byekwaso had announced that the league would throw off at the start of November but sadly, Not a single game has been played since then.
In August this year, Ogwel was declared unfit to continue as the NCS accounting officer since he had to account for public funds, this was through a letter from the ministry of finance PS Ramathan Ggoobi who also requested the chairperson to recommend a new candidate for the role in the next financial year.
In the opposite corner, Kityo now spends her prescious time in philanthropy works, far from the coffers of the sport and her return seems to be a far fetch.
On the flipside, the sport is trying to get back on its feet. Now in their brand new cloth of “Netball Uganda” dropping the dirt filled “Uganda Netball Federation” title, it’s presidency seat is expected to be filled on 26th October this year with hopes of resurrectiing Uganda’s Netball from a more than a year long deep slumber.
