Kenya may not host Africa Athletics meet

Kenya may not host the 17th Africa Senior Athletics Championships in 2010 after the government and Athletics Kenya failed to agree on logistics.

AK chairman Isaiah Kiplagat on Wednesday pointed an accusing finger at the government, accusing it of failure to give the green light and fund the event scheduled to be staged in Nairobi in April.

Sports Commissioner Gordon Oluoch however said that, in their last meeting, it was agreed that AK would first review the prospect of hosting the event successfully as well as meeting the deadline.

Signs of the event not being hosted here appeared last week when AK failed to secure an initial Sh30 million – part of the total Sh200 million the government had pledged – for the event’s secretariat.

Even a visit by Africa Athletics Confederation president Hamad Kalkaba Malboum to Kenya in February to drum up support for the event fell on deaf ears. “There is a major problem in the Ministry of Sports. No one is talking straight. Today we meet, they make demands over certain documents like budget; tomorrow you meet another senior officer in the ministry who complains of you not having issued the document,” said Kiplagat.

Kiplagat said sourcing of equipment and other tenders will not be met in time due to the strict procurement procedure involving spending of government funds. “But all is not lost. The issue need to be discussed at cabinet level,” said Kiplagat.

If Kenya fails to host the event, it will be second time in as many years that the Confederation of Africa Athletics (CAA) will be forced to seek an alternative host. The Africa Junior Athletics Championship has been taken to Mauritius after Equatorial Guinea pulled out of the deal.

Streamline ministry

Kiplagat accused top ministry official of not working as a team but on individual basis and said it was time a major review was done to streamline the ministry’s operations.

“Look at how they exchanged words in Parliament over Coca-Cola National Stadium and its sponsorship. The minister and her deputies don’t read from the same script. It is the same with senior officials; they keep on making demands or feign lack of knowledge whenever we confront them,” the AK boss lamented.

Kenya beat Benin 10-9 to bag the hosting rights for the championships which will be used to select Africa’s team to the 2010 World Cup in Split, Croatia. With just nine months left, there is little indication that the event will be staged here.