The Ministry of Sport, Youth and National Service (MSYNS) and the Namibia Sport Commission (NSC) will spend almost N.dollars 400 000 on officials accompanying Team Namibia to the Olympics despite athletes still being owed money.

The 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympic Games will start on 25 July and end 08 August. Team Namibia is expected to start departing for Tokyo from 18 July.

The ministry and NSC are still to honour their reward policy for athletes who won silverware for the country at different international competitions since 2019.

These include the African Games, the World Athletics Championships and World Para Athletics Championships.

Five athletes and coaches who won silverware in 2019 will be jetting off to the games while still being owed part of N.dollars 910 000.

The Namibia National Olympic Committee (NNOC) last week announced a team of 11 athletes and seven coaches, two mechanics, two doctors and five officials who will represent Namibia in Japan.

Amongst the officials is MSYNS Executive Director Audrin Mathe and NSC vice-chairperson Alna Similo.

The two dignitaries travelling to the Olympics will costs N.dollars 6 600 per person per night or N.dollars 118 800 per person for 18 nights at the Imperial Tokyo Hotel, which is the hotel that will be used by dignitaries and secretary generals during the games.

The ministry and sports commission would have to pay for return flights tickets and pay their subsistence and travel (S&T) allowance for 20 days from 18 July if the officials leave on the first trip with the athletes.

The 2008 government daily subsistence allowance policy rate, payable for travel abroad on official duty for staff members and members of the services, shows that a permanent secretary, now executive director, claims US.dollars 466 per day on rate one (around N.dollars 6 649 at the current exchange rate) and US.dollars 216 on rate two when their accommodation is paid for them (around N.dollars 3 082) per day.

With government currently cutting down on expenditure across the board due to limited resources, Nampa contacted the ministry to find out what role the ED and NSC vice chairperson will play at the games when Simataa Matali, the second secretary at the Embassy of Namibia in Tokyo, has been acting as the government attaché.

The ministry’s chief public relations officer, Aina Shikesho, said Mathe will be at the games on behalf of the minister.

“The minister was invited to the games but due to pertinent national commitments the minister is not able to travel and she delegated the executive director to represent the ministry. It is standard procedure that the delegation is led by a government official,” she said.

When asked where the struggling ministry got the funds to pay for these travels, Shikesho said the cost of flight tickets, accommodation and S&T will be covered by the hosts.

In an interview, NNOC secretary general Joan Smit however said neither the International Olympic Committee nor the Japanese government cover costs for government officials who are invited to attend the games.

“It’s the norm for the IOC to accredit government officials, but it’s not a must for them to attend the games. The IOC only pays for the secretary general and president of the national Olympic committees, but not for the government officials,” said Smit, who added that even if the NNOC had the money, the IOC would not allow them to use such funds on paying for government officials.

Sports Minister Agnes Tjongarero told this agency recently she would not be travelling to Japan in efforts to cut costs.

“We currently don’t have money, therefore I directed the ED to go on my behalf as his S&T as well as other benefits are much cheaper,” she said.

When this agency asked the ministry why they are not cancelling the government officials’ trips to Japan and to instead use some of the money to reward athletes like Vera Looser, Alex Miller, Helalia Johannes and Junias Jonas who won medals in 2019, Shikesho said the ministry is still waiting for funds from the Ministry of Finance.

“As indicated previously, the costs will be covered by the inviting hosts. However, as indicated in our previous communication on the reward money for the athletes the MSYNS has submitted its request for the needed funds to the Ministry of Finance and is waiting for the latter to release the funds to settle all outstanding payments of athletes,” she said.

Source: Namibia Press Agency