Uganda: Harmonise positions on Sports Bill – Speaker

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The Speaker, Anita Among has deferred the consideration of the Physical Activity and Sports Bill at second reading and directed the Attorney General, the State Minister for Sports, the mover of the bill, Hon. Moses Magogo and the Shadow Minister for Sports to harmonize their positions on the Bill.

The Speaker's directive on Wednesday, 01 March 2023 followed a question raised by Butambala District Woman Representative, Hon. Aisha Kabanda who sought clarity on registration of sports federations.

“Honorable Members, under normal circumstances we are supposed to go to the Bill's Committee stage. I am standing over that stage because of the problems that we realized we had on local content,” Among said.

The Bill by Magogo proposes that sports federations are registered by the National Council of Sports as opposed to incorporation under the Companies Act.

This, he said, would curb the existing bureaucracy in the incorporation of sports federations.
“Federations today are registered as trustees but this does not fit into the requirements of international affiliation. The requirements of a company are not the same as the requirements of a federation,” Magogo said.

He said that giving the National Council of Sports powers to register federations as body corporates will ensure a singular regulator and also allow federations to own property, sue or be sued.

The Attorney General, Hon. Kiryowa Kiwanuka however, said that the proposal by Magogo would defeat the implementation of recommendations 24 and 25 of the Financial Action Task Force.
“It is legally possible to create a new mechanism of granting legal capacity under the Ugandan legal regime. But we have gone through a process of getting Uganda off the grey list under the Financial Action Task Force and have already declared all methods used to create legal personality. If we make a new method of cresting legal personality, we are going to fall back on this process,” the Attorney General said.

He proposed that federations should be incorporated under one of the existing methods of creating legal personality.

Hon. Asuman Basalirwa (JEEMA, Bugiri Municipality) proposed that Parliament should reconcile its powers as an organ mandated to make laws and the country's obligations under the Financial Action Task Force.

He cited the enactment of the Political Parties and Organisations Act that created uniformity in the law and allowed political parties to be registered by the Electoral Commission, rather than by Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB).
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Parliament of the Republic of Uganda.