Kenyan MPs amend anti-doping law

The government moved to within the steps of complying with the Unesco convention against doping in sports after the National Assembly passed the Anti-Doping (Amendment) Bill 2020 during a special sitting on Tuesday.

However, the compliance will come to pass if President Uhuru Kenyatta signs the Bill into law.

The Bill seeks to criminalise doping in sports, a move that will see offenders serve jail terms as the country intensifies the fight against the vice that has rocked its international recognition as an international athletics powerhouse.

The Bill seeks to harmonise the Anti-Doping Act of 2016 with the 2021 World Anti-Doping Code and Regulations to which Kenya is a party to. “This Bill is very important to the country as it ensures that Kenya complies with the Wada (World Anti- Doping Agency) and Adak (Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya) code of regulations,” Mavoko MP Patrick Makau, who chairs the House Sports Committee that considered the Bill, told the MPs as he pushed for its passage during its debate.

The enactment of the law is expected to support the achievement of compliance by Kenya to the internationally adopted Code and facilitate the continued participation of Kenyan athletes in local, regional, and international competitions while appreciating the relevance of curbing doping in sports.

Kenya is renowned worldwide as an athletic powerhouse more so in long distance races, earning the country the much deserved honour and respect on the global scene. However, increased cases of doping among her athletes in the last few years have seen the country’s prowess in the sport mired in embarrassment.

The passage of the Bill is, therefore, a warning that athletes have got to win clean in line with the Wada and Adak codes.

Already over 50 Kenyan athletes — including Olympic big names Asbel Kiprop and Jemima  Sumgong — have been banned from taking part in local and international championships for various periods after testing positive for banned substances. Had it not been passed yesterday after the MPs were recalled from the long Christmas recess, the Bill would have lapsed by December 31, 2020, a potential danger with all the threats of locking Kenya from the international championships. Having ratified the Unesco convention against doping in sport in 2009, Kenya became a member state and was thus bound to the international regulations on anti-doping.

The first World Anti-Doping Code was adopted in 2004. It was amended and a new one adopted in 2009.

The current code was ratified in 2015 and is due to be replaced by the 2021 code which will become operational on January 1, 2021.

The 2021 Code has introduced new international standards, being the 2021 International Standard for Education (ISE) and the 2021 International Standard for Results Management (ISRM).

This is the purpose of the amendment as it will align the Anti-Doping Act to the Code.

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