As the final touches to pronounce themselves publicly on the status of Fufa’s legality are being made, the Sports Ministry has hit back at the local body after Moses Magogo and company claimed before the Parliamentary Committee on Education and Sports that government has neglected all football activities in the country.
Appearing a day after Magogo made the claim, the Sports Commissioner, Omara Apita, told the same committee that the government was hesitant to deal with the federation after advice from the Solicitor General.
Apita quoted the Solicitor General’s letter dated May 27th, 2013 to the Education Ministry Permanent Secretary stating that, “Fufa, the national association, is supposed to be established under the regulations made by the Minister of Education and Sports and that even without the regulations Fufa in its current state as Fufa Limited, is still illegal.”
Apita also cited section 18 of the Companies Act, Cap 110 that prohibits registration of organisations with similar names or those similar to well-known national bodies that are likely to cause confusion to the public.
But while appearing before the committee this week Magogo had told the legislators that there exists Fufa and Fufa Limited, with the latter the legal arm of the federation.
Magogo appeared to contradict himself when he said the federation was only accountable to their general assembly, claiming is the supreme body of Fufa.
Yet later in his submission the same man told the committee that Uganda is the only country where the federation is left with the responsibility of paying the national team’s coach.
“How then do you deal with an illegal entity,” Apita, who told the committee that the federation had frustrated the ministry’s efforts to facilitate the current Cranes coach Micho Sredojevic’s salary, wondered.
“Honourable Alupo (Jessica, the Education and Sports Minister) asked me to find out, how much Micho would be earning as Cranes coach immediately after he was unveiled but they (Fufa) explicitly told me his salary was a confidential matter between the coach and the federation,” Apita told the amused legislators.
In October last year, the federation admitted Micho had gone two months without pay five months after the Serbian had taken charge of the national team on a two year contract.
Meanwhile, Alupo also appeared before the same Parliamentary Committee on Thursday and reinstated that Fufa/Fufa ltd in its current state is illegal and must be disbanded.
“We are going to share regulations of the NCS Act instituted by the taskforce committee with the honourable Prime Minister where the legality matter will be conclusively dealt with,” Alupo told the committee.
“It is after that meeting that we shall pronounce ourselves publically on the matter of Fufa but as government we are bound by the Solicitor General’s recommendations,” she added.
Source: Supersport
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