Little to write home about Wario’s time as Sports CS

As Hassan Arero Wario packs up to leave Ministry of Sports offices in Nairobi, wishes that he will find time to reflect deeply on his five-year tenure as Cabinet Secretary for Sports.

As he prepares to take up his new role as Kenya’s Ambassador to Austria, thoughts of the key moments that defined his tenure as Sports Minister are likely to flash in his mind from time to time. He will most likely spare a few minutes for self-evaluation before finally vacating his Kencom office. Sports stakeholders may never know how he rates his own performance, but the general consensus among stakeholders is that his was a tenure of unfulfilled expectations.

“Wario never understood sports and he never bothered to understand us as sports administrators. I hope that he will perform better in his new position,” said Kenya Rugby Union chairman Richard Omwela immediately after Rashid Mohammed Achesa was appointed new Cabinet Secretary for Sports on Friday.

Omwela’s sentiments are shared by a good number of sports stakeholders who found themselves having to work under Wario in the last five years. Wario’s biggest failure as a government official was the widely-publicised fiasco in Team Kenya camp at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

Kenya brought back 13 medals of six gold, six silver and one bronze, surpassing the country’s performance at the 2008 Beijing Olympics where Kenya collected 16 medals (six gold, four silver and six bronze). But the complaints that followed afterwards drowned the country’s cheers and collective pride, as it emerged that Team Kenya officials mismanaged funds both at the Sports Ministry and at the National Olympic Committee of Kenya. Findings of a probe committee set up to investigate the scandal are gathering dust somewhere.

The bungling of Team Kenya in Rio, coming at a time when a cabinet reshuffle was imminent, was expected to mark the end of Wario’s tenure, but he escaped untouched even after Director of Public Prosecutions recommended that investigations be carried out and key sports ministry officials be prosecuted.

CHAN DEBACLE

Kenya’s failure to host the African Nations Championship, a 16-team tournament currently going on in Morocco, also blighted Wario’s tenure.

The Confederation of Africa Football (Caf) said it stripped Kenya of the tournament’s hosting rights “due to the political situation in the country” but every knowledgeable Kenyan knew that it had everything to do with government’s failure to put up the requisite infrastructure.

After three inspection tours to Kenya, Caf officials, angry at lack of progress in building stadiums for the tournament, left in a huff. Kenya was hoping to compete in the tournament as hosts.

But beyond the misappropriation of funds, beyond the poor performance by Kenya’s national teams in international tournaments, beyond Wario’s inability to convince government to avail the sports infrastructure that Kenyans deserve, it is Wario’s indifference in times of crisis that irked sports stakeholders the most.

Wario, whose appointment to the Sports Ministry docket in 2013 was greeted warmly despite being relatively new in the eyes of sports stakeholders, failed to win the support of many.

'NO QUESTIONS'

Whenever the sports fraternity looked up to him for guidance as happened in the wake of bungling of Team Kenya in Rio Olympics and during numerous visits by Caf delegates to assess Kenya’s preparedness to host 2018 Chan, Wario remained absent and unreachable.

When pushed to a corner, he would walk casually into press conferences hours late, and announce in his opening remarks that he would not be taking questions from journalists.

This cold demeanour earned him nothing but scepticism among journalists who frowned upon the casual manner in which he treated weighty issues. It would be unfair to blame all that went wrong in the sports industry on Wario.

Yet local administrators believe he personally deserves much of the blame. That kind of feedback is devastating.

“Wario had his weaknesses, but he could have performed better. We will, however, remember him for establishing the Anti-Doping Association of Kenya. I think that is the only thing he succeeded in doing,” Athletics Kenya Nairobi region chairman Barnabas Korir said.

Notably, Wario’s biggest achievement was the enactment of the 2013 Sports Act into law. The Act, which is now in full effect save for the dicey Sports Fund, saw the formation of Sports Dispute Tribunal as well as the Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya (Adak).

The Sports Act set term limits for officials seeking top positions in federations, and empowered the Registrar was also empowered to streamline the activities of sports federations.

Even those that dislike Wario agree that without the Sports Act, elections in several sports federations, including Football Federation of Kenya, Athletics Kenya and National Olympic Committee of Kenya (Noc-K) would never have been conducted.

It is also during Wario’s tenure that Kenya emerged overall winners for the first time during the 2015 World Championships in Athletics held in Beijing. Kenya topped the medal standings with 16 medals (seven gold medals, six silver and three bronze).

Kenya Sevens also claimed their first victory in the World Rugby Sevens Series with victory at Singapore Sevens during the 2015-2015 Series, beating Fiji 31-7 in the final. It was also during Wario’s tenure that Kenya Sevens reached the World Cup semi-finals in 2013 for only the second time.

In an interview with Nation Sport mid last year, Wario said that he “will always be proud of the successes of the World Under-18 Championships in Athletics in 2017”, having presented a strong and successful bid in Monaco in 2014.

The global athletics event was indeed a success with record-breaking attendance on the final day of the competition.

FAILURES

August 2016: Rio fiasco

October 2017: Chan hosting rights gone

June 2016: Kenya Paralympics stranded for lack of funds

November 2016: Failure to implement report by the probe committee looking into the bungling of Team Kenya at 2016 Olympics

April 2017: Volleyball team pulls out of the World Grand Prix due to lack of funds

August 2017: Non-payment of World U18 contractors

SUCCESSES

2103: Setting up the Sports Act (yet to be fully implemented)

2014: Successfully tabling a bid for World U18.