Tanzania: New Sports Policy in the Offing

Tanzania Daily News (Dar es Salaam)

Nasongelya Kilyinga

27 June 2011

Dodoma — THE government is in the final process to review its sports policy in a bid to develop, promote and revive various sports in the country, the National Assembly was told here on Monday.

Deputy Minister for Information, Youth, Culture and Sports Fenella Mukangara told the house that the new policy will point the alternative way forward to develop sports at all levels.

She further said that the government was working on a special strategy to organize sports activities at grassroots level, where she said talents are in abundance.

“This strategy will enable the government and the society at large to be fully involved and organize, coordinate sports activities. The society will also be responsible to preserve areas that have been reserved for sports activities at all levels,” she said.

She further said that under the plan, her ministry will continue to inspire various authorities, to set aside funds for sports development.

Dr Mukangara added that the government will also continue to provide training to experts in various sports disciplines so as to meet the demand of qualified sports experts in the country.

She was responding to a question by Salim Hemed Khamis (Chambani-CUF), who demanded to know why sports was deteriorating in the country. Mukangara refuted the notion that sports was in decline saying the actual fact is that sports was improving.

However, she admitted that the country has been facing various challenges in developing sports that include limited budget, lack of proper foundation to develop sports at different levels, bad leaders in sports associations and clubs level, as well as failure to involve stakeholders to give their views on how to improve sports sector.

She further pointed out that another factor could be failure to implement various sports programmes at associations and clubs level and poor decision making.

In his supplementary question, Mr Khamis had demanded to know if the government was making any efforts for Tanzania to regain its status in athletics and compete favourably against Kenya and Ethiopia.

Answering, Dr Mukangara said that the government was doing enough to improve athletics. She pointed out an initiatiate which is supported by German Foreign Office, in which a centre for athletics has been established in Kibaha, Coast region under the Germany expert Hans Peter Thumm.

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