BY BOCKARIE ALIEU
232NEWS, FREETOWN —
President Bio in his second term in office has appointed Augusta James Teima as the first ever female Sports Minister in Sierra Leone and has maintained Laurence Mbayo as the Deputy Minister of Sports to work with her.
SALONE TIMES Sports first wants to take this opportunity to congratulate both Ministers for their appointment.
The fans say that they have no doubt about the new Sports Minister as she has vast experience in sports administration. The new Sports Minister has three sides to her story.
She did sports both in school and college and was the fastest in 100M &200M at Milton Margai College of Education. She holds Higher Teachers Certificate in Physical Health Education, a Bachelor of Education in Physical Health Education, and a Master’s Degree in Sports Administration.
She did coaching courses in Athletics and Handball both local and international courses. On to her appointment, she was the head coach of the Sierra Peace Athletics Club (SPAC).
With the above qualifications, she did sports in school and college, thought PHEd in various schools both at home and overseas, and lectured at the Milton Margai College.
Thirdly she coached athletics and Handball players. She was also elected as the new treasurer of the new executive of the Sierra Leone Athletics Association headed by Martin Bangura.
The Sports Ministry is one of the broadest ministries in the government. In Sierra Leone, the Ministry has over 40 sports operating. Most of these sports depend mainly on government funds to operate. Besides Sports, the government has other vital ministries like Health, Education, Agriculture, Trade, Transport and Communication, and several more competing for meagre resources.
These Ministries are all priorities and obligatory for the government to pour money into them. In this case, the government shares the little they have among as per the budget prepared by the Finance Ministry.
In the case of Sports, the money allocated to them is what they also use to pay staff of the Ministry and the National Sports Authority.
In the new system, the National Sports Authority (NSA) received a chunk of the funds allocated to the sports ministry and they in return disbursed to the various sporting disciplines which have vital international activities (qualifying and final competitions) like the Nations cup, Regional/zonal competitions and the world cup competitions, Olympic, Commonwealth and Islamic Games.
In this case, the government’s responsibility is to buy tickets for some of the national teams and for the majority to give allowance to the athletes and the officials.
With all the above activities, 80% of the government funds allocated to sports has been used by football alone. Among the remaining sports, some went without funds throughout the first five years, and even in the past regimes why some received far lesser than the budget they allocate to the ministry.
This led the president to launch the basket fund project to generate extra funds for sports as the government alone cannot meet their financial demands.
But from the day it was launched to this time, there is nothing to say good about the project instead they have used the money that President Bio donated and there was nothing again left.
The former Sports Minister Ibrahim Nyelenkeh once said that he was going to take the basket fund project to the cabinet to discuss how they could do to let funds start to come into the project but up to the time of his sacking as a Sports Minister, the people do not know what happened to the project.
In this case, the new Minister has a huge task to do as they are expecting that she will do something different to develop sports in the country. The priority should be how to source funds into the basket fund project.
Many have suggested that a small amount be deducted from any litre of fuel bought, mobile top-ups, and betting tickets bought go to the basket fund.
Such discussion will be taken in cabinet meetings and will be approved in parliament.
The fans though said they know football is the most popular sport in the country but at least let the remaining sports themselves get some part of the funds allocated to sports. The development of sports, they said should be a teamwork by the Sports Ministry and NSA so that the new Minister and her Deputy will succeed.
