Delay in publishing Kenya’s Olympics list breeding speculation
NOC-K President Paul Tergat (far left) and AK President (Rtd) Lt Gen Jack Tuwei (far right) with Paris Olympics-bound Kenyan athletes at Nyayo National Stadium in Nairobi on June 15, 2024.
What you need to know:
- It has been more than two weeks without a response from the ministry.
- Are we likely to discover someone’s skeletons hidden inside that well-guarded list?
According to the dictionary, a revolution, the kind that is happening in Kenya now, refers to a sudden, extreme, or complete change in the way people live or work.
A usually violent attempt by many people to end the rule of one government and start a new one. But amid the spirited attempts by Kenyan youth to address the historical horrors witnessed in Kenyan politics over the years, there is one that, for now, is sticking out.
Kenyans, traumatised by previous cases of joyriders being flown to the Olympics on taxpayers’ account, want the complete list of non-competing individuals travelling to this year’s edition, and their roles.
It has been more than two weeks without a response from the ministry, so what’s taking sports ministry so long to publish the list?
This is the first time anyone is demanding the list of travelling officials, and, coming even before the start of the competition, this is another sweet reminder that we are in the middle of a real revolution.
But before we move on, bear in mind that the word revolution has another meaning: The action of moving around something in a path that is similar to a circle. Like the way the sun moves around the earth every 365 days. In short, an endless rotation.
The good people at the ministry, now led by Principle Secretary Peter Tum, certainly doesn’t need another English lesson, but tragically, they seem to be ignoring the first and most befitting definition of the kind of revolution happening in Kenya.
They seem to be leaning towards the second meaning. For them, it is much more pleasant to give empty assurances that no joyriders will go to Paris on taxpayers’ account. To talk of increased allowances for competing athletes.
Of the support offered to athletes as they prepare to bring the medals. Of the government’s commitment to ensure the success of our Olympians.
Their refusal to do the right thing – make public the list of non-competing travellers only breeds speculation and show that the people at the ministry cannot and will not listen to Kenyans. More importantly, it lead us to this question: What’s the fear about? Are we likely to discover someone’s skeletons hidden inside that well-guarded list?
Already, the ministry is on the wrong side of public opinion over the official kit for the Kenyan Olympics team, which caused much furore online with Kenyans blasting the designers for what they have termed as cheap and ugly outfits.
Before a substantive CS is installed, everyone at the ministry should be reminded that the last time a sports CS displayed this kind of bravado, he ended up in court on accusations of misappropriating Sh55 million, but not before losing his job as an ambassador, and of course, his reputation.
That man was Hassan Wario, who was charged in the aftermath of the 2016 Rio Olympics for overseeing the embezzlement of Sh22.4 million, overpayment of allowances worth Sh15.9 million, spending of Sh6.5 million on unauthorised persons and purchase of air tickets worth Sh16.8 million, which were never used. Kenyans have never heard of him nor his co-accused again. Not a pleasant place to end up, is it?
