War on doping starts now, declares Namwamba after taking over

New Sports Cabinet Secretary Ababu Namwamba has said he will embark on the road to get Kenyan football back on track and wage a war against doping cartels after taking over from Amina Mohamed on Friday.

Namwamba, who is making a return to the ministry he served in at the tail end of the Grand Coalition Government in 2012, said he was going to start engaging all stakeholders before the end of the day to unlock the crisis.

"We want to immediately get down on dealing with the Fifa stalemate. I have been sufficiently briefed by CS Amina and I will be paying very keen attention to the measures that have been proposed to find a solution to this gridlock. That is in sync with President Ruto’s call to fidelity to rule of law," Namwamba said.

"I will start working on it today not tomorrow. I promised during my vetting on day one in office, I will be on this like a tick. Want to engage all stakeholders involved so that football can be what is should be - a fun space but also an industry from which our young people can earn a decent living."

On doping, Namwamba said:  "We want to get to this doping crisis. If you are a doctor out there, part of this syndicate providing substance to our athletes, I'm after you right after this press briefing. If you are agent doing this be warned that your days are so, so numbered. We will work with all stakeholders to make it extremely expensive to dope. Elevate banned substance to the calibre of hard drugs so that if you are caught, we treat you as a trafficker of heroine, cocaine and other hard drugs."

Namwamba arrived at the Kenya National Library Service, Sanaa Centre Hall in Nairobi for the handover ceremony shortly after 10.30am before he proceeded for a closed door meeting with his predecessor Amina Mohamed, principal secretaries Joe Okudo (Sports) and Josephta Mukobe (Culture).

Amina thanked everyone she worked with to deliver on the government mandate before outlining her successes in the ministry.

"I would like to thank the amazing team that has worked with me diligently. Over the years, I have learnt a lot and I hope that I have also taught a bit. I enjoyed working with you."

"At the time walked in ministry corridors the corridors were lined up with disgruntled athletes including Paralympics team that struggled to get funding, missed competitions, and got stranded at airports. There was dilapidated infrastructure, very few international events hosted in the country, cases of blocked roads, including the Thika Superhighway by protesting sportsmen and women, and some institutions including Kenya Academy of Sports that were present only on paper," she said.

"We have constructed several new stadiums including Kirigiti International Stadium, Kinoru, Chuka, Narok Stadium, and Jomo Kenyatta International Stadium in Kisumu, and upgraded the Nyayo and Moi International Sports Stadiums to make them modern and up-to-standard. This is in addition to the construction of the Jamhuri Sports Ground as a sports and recreational centre."

She further highlighted the return of the Safari Rally to the World Rally Championships calendar for the first time since 2002 as her other notable achievement.

"We, further successfully negotiated the return of WRC Safari Rally – with the 2021 and 2022 editions breaking the world record as the most watched in the series."

"We hosted the Africa Deaflympics, begun process of negotiating for a world city marathon to be held in Nairobi. We succeeded this year and I am very proud of it. It is the only City Marathon in our continent very proud of it."

"We also hosted the Kip Keino Classic and other athletics events…we brought cricket back to life and Cricket Kenya has started hosting world events."

"It has been wonderful journey, difficult, resource consuming but worthwhile."

Amina added that she has injected integrity not just in the ministry but in the sports federations.

"I would like to thank Kenyans for being very supportive of what we have done as a ministry. What we did with our football was very difficult but courageous step to take. The support we got across the board was overwhelming."