Chilima dates Sports Council

Vice-President Saulos Chilima dates today the Malawi National Council of Sports which is part of parastatals lined up for public sector reforms meetings in Blantyre.

Pilirani Phiri, spokesperson of the Office of the Vice-President, confirmed the meeting which is not open to the press. The meetings are unfolding at Protea Ryalls.

“The meetings started on Tuesday and end this Friday. It’s three parastatals per day and the Sports Council is part of them,” Phiri said.

The council’s executive secretary George Jana was, as of yesterday, at the funeral of his late father-in-law in Salima and, when contacted, was clinging to remote hope of attending the reforms meeting.

“We do not have documentation on the actual agenda of the meeting, so at this stage, it is difficult to comment much. We will take it as it comes,” Jana said.

Football Association of Malawi (FAM) president Walter Nyamilandu expects the council to impress on the Vice-President on the need to change the perception that sports is a social sector.

“We need to find a way of optimising the resources towards sports to ensure that a lot of money trickles down to the actual sports disciplines. If we [football] were a stand-alone entity getting direct funding from Parliament—as is the case in Zambia— our needs could have been more appreciated,” Nyamilandu explained.

Earlier, Blessings Chilabade, principal secretary in the Public Service Reforms Management, confirmed to The Nation through Phiri reforms would extend to the sports sector even though the discipline does not fall under the pioneer ministries for the Organisation Performance Agreements (OPAs) launched on 11th February, 2015.

The meetings are meant to champion identification of strategic areas requiring reforms and prepare implementation plans. Chilima once headed FAM’s Make Football Happen campaign of 2005.

“Based on the structure outlined above, it is expected that the Ministry of Youth and Sports will identity and implement necessary reform initiatives as part of the ministry’s reform agenda,” Chilabade explained.