CS Murkomen roots for privatisation of stadiums

While appearing before the National Assembly, Murkomen said the government was making losses in maintaining sports facilities and it was time to allow a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement that would see the private sector given a mandate to manage some of the facilities.

Murkomen said the PPP arrangement would also see the private sector commercialize the sports facilities, a move that he hopes will ease the national government’s burden of being in charge of all the sports facilities.

“As a matter of fact I think that governments should not be owning stadiums ....all over the world governments don’t own all the stadiums. Just one or two because it is costing a lot of taxpayers money without any much return. England for instance has one major stadium-Wembley which is managed by the national government. The rest are private facilities," Murkomen told MPs.

“PPP modality is the way to go and if these facilities are owned by the private sector they can be commercialized and still be available for sports activities. With that, the government will not be pumping a lot of funds to maintain the stadiums that can still generate income if are managed by the private sector."

Regarding the stalled stadia projects across the country, the CS said situations in most of the facilities remain an eyesore but the ministry was in the process of clearing all pending bills before resumption of works.

 "I've given my team two weeks to review and start paying any pending bills then we can complete the pending stadiums. We don't want another round of lamentations on why we've stalled projects."

The CS also decried major budget cuts for different agencies under the Ministry of Sports, a move he warned was crippling operations at the ministry.

“There is a pattern that is developing and agencies in this ministry are ignored. For instance, ADAK requested Ksh.300 million but received only Ksh. 20million and this could put the anti-doping agency in an awkward situation with WADA, who are very strict with the anti-doping rules.

“The budget allocation for the Sports Academy in 2023/2024 financial year was Ksh. 280 million and this financial year they requested Ksh. 600m but were allocated zero. I implore that let us put our money where our loudest mouth is,” he said.

“We all like cheering for our athletes, footballers but we’re happy to sit as Executive and legislators to give zero funds to these agencies. That should prick our conscience and re think about how we are handling sports and sports facilities. We cannot reap where we have not sowed.”

ADAK chairman Amb. Daniel Makdwallo recently said that  due to a slash in government funding, the agency was unable to carry out its mandate and risked major sanctions from World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

The legislators however said there was need to have a legal framework that will ring-fence the Sports Fund to ensure the allocated funds fully benefit the sports sector.