Steering Committee’s role in bungling of Team Kenya

Deputy President William Ruto receives his accreditation for the Olympic Games from the Team Kenya Chef de Mission Stephen arap Soi after arriving in Brazil. PHOTO | DPPS |

What you need to know:

  • Yego insists Nock to blame for his travelling impasse at JKIA ahead of Games
  • Members didn’t meet as required to plan for Games, allowing Nock to usurp its powers

National Olympic Committee of Kenya (Nock) took advantage of a vacuum left by an ineffective Team Kenya Steering Committee to run the show, taking charge of areas where it had no competence.

A review of minutes of meetings held by the Steering Committee indicates that there was no official list of members of the committee, and representatives of various sports bodies involved in the planning of Team Kenya’s trip to the Games kept changing.

The Steering Committee was meant to meet 10 times but records show it only met thrice - on March 30, on April 28 and on July 15 this year. Two of the meetings were chaired by Sports Cabinet Secretary Hassan Wario.

Lack of regular meetings inconvenienced many of the sub-committees. Chairmen of various committees were forced to organise separate meetings with Sports Principal Secretary Richard Ekai for consultations and policy directions, matters that were meant to have been deliberated upon during regular committee meetings.

These private meetings made many Steering Committee members feel left out of the planning process for the Games, lowering their morale.

But some members felt the Steering Committee was ineffective because it lacked proper working procedures and guidelines as well as proper representation from various stakeholders.

For instance, there was no representatives in the committee from federations that had qualified to send athletes to the Games.

“The exclusion of representatives from the federations from the Steering Committee was a major omission, considering that they knew their teams better and were best placed to express their concerns,” says the report by the probe committee appointed by Sports CS Hassan Wario.

Federations whose representatives were omitted from the Steering Committee are Athletics Kenya, Kenya Rugby Union, and Kenya National Paralympic Committee.

The 26-member Steering Committee was meant to provide support, drive policy and offer oversight on preparation of Team Kenya for the Olympics. It is usually made up of officials from the Sports Ministry, local sports federations and Nock.