Ababu reads riot act to Kenya Aquatics, no solution on existing standoff offered yet

Cabinet secretary for Youth Affairs, Sports and the Arts Hon. Ababu Namwamba on Sunday 17 September called upon the Kenya Aquatics Federation to put their house in order in a bid to resolve the existing political standoff, mentioning that his ministry was ‘not going to allow some federations to continue messing up the sports scene and punishing athletes due to their lack of good governance.’

The CS was speaking at Kasarani where he convened a meeting with Kenya Aquatics stakeholders and eight county representatives, to find a consensus that would see Kenya's provisional suspension by the world swimming governing body, World Aquatics, lifted by holding its national elections.

The country is currently under new sanctions by World Aquatics for failing to hold elections since 2014, a situation that has persisted until Sunday 13 August 2023's communication by Brent J. Nowicki, in place of World Aquatics, announced further sanctions on Kenya’s federation - Kenya Aquatics - for repeated failure to comply with World Aquatics rules and decisions.

The sanctions indicated that Kenya had been barred from any activity within World Aquatics (including participation in its events), coupled up with maintenance of its current suspension of the country, one that would last 90 days, before a final decision, on whether the elections had been held by then or not, would be made.

“Sports has the opportunity to contribute as a mega industry and must be run in accordance with the law,” the CS, who was accompanied by members of the Federation’s Stabilization Committee, said. “We will clean up all these federations and ensure that our sportsmen and women are better cared for.”

The committee is chaired by Jace Baidoo, with Moses Benson and National Olympics Committee of Kenya (NOC-K) Secretary General Francis Mutuku as members who run all day-to-day operations of the federation.

But since 2019, when Kenya was first placed under suspension, the body has been unable to hold its elections, a situation that saw Kenya’s young swimmers miss out on youth championships this year, while being barred from participating under the Kenyan flag.

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“We are going to fix the sporting arena in this country and we will hold all federations to account, with three irreducible minimums of transparency, accountability and good governance at the top of our agenda," the CS added.

It is yet to be seen if there is going to be a solution in the coming days, with two factions existing, and the presence of pending court cases proving hard to get over.

The CS on 25 August hinted at some light at the end of the tunnel saying to the National Assembly: “I had a breakthrough with World Aquatics where they agreed that we set up a joint committee that will help solve the issues in the Kenya Swimming Federation. I have also made a request to them (World Aquatics) to allow us to participate in international events as we sort out the issues and I am confident we will do so.”