Africa-Press – Uganda. Emerging evidence has exposed Royal Giants School Mityana, who won the Cecafa Zone Caf African Schools Football Championship, as frauds.
Royal Giants overcame Ethiopia’s Geda Royal SS 4-2 in post-match penalties in the final played at the Azam Sports Complex in Tanzania in February to earn a cash prize of $100,000 and a place in the Pan African finals in Durban, South Africa.
But when the final draws were held, Royal Giants were still stuck in Uganda sweating to receive clearance from the visa and passport office at Lugogo run by VFS Global, a joint visa application centre for Australia, South Africa and Ukraine.
In a lengthy process that involved high-ranking government officials, it has since been established that the applications were rejected over inconsistencies.
Daily Monitor understands that of the 15 players submitted by the school to travel to South Africa, only eight were eligible for the final tournament. The tournament sponsored by Caf president Dr Patrice Motsepe and his wife Dr Precious Moloi-Motsepe through the Motsepe Foundation, was meant for boys and girls teams made up of players aged 12-15 years old.
The inconsistencies were identified at the National Identification and Registration Authority (Nira) where some of the players had submitted details for National Identity cards.
It is understood that the process at Nira was aborted on the request of the school team manager Tony Mutebi, after the first eight of the 15 players, only Enock Kabanda had the right age. The others are reported to have had conflicting ages.
The visa office found out that nine of the submitted players had dead parents and demanded for death certificates.
In trying to explain what happened, Benon Ntambi, the school director issued an ambiguous unsigned e-press release citing witch-hunt.
“People, who are fabricating stories, intend to soil Fufa’s name and to damage officers and executives of Fufa and USSSA. They are very unfair and probably seeking to meet their own agenda,” the e-press release read in part.
Things go south
The person at the centre of the failed trip is Fufa’s Richard Ssemanda Nadibanga, an experienced procurement officer, who handles numerous foreign travels.
In an interview with the Daily Monitor, Ssemanda disclosed that he was embarrassed by what he termed as ‘false allegations’.
“This is not the first duty I have been assigned before. But it was very complicated,” Ssemanda said.
Information available to us indicates that red flags were all over the team which complicated their travel to South Africa, a country whose visa processes for Africans are metaphorically likened to a camel passing through the eye of a needle.
For instance, one of the players, Ivan Ishimwe, presented passport number A00971698 issued in November 2022 with the date of birth of February 15, 2008 with Claude Ngilawosanga and Emirina Twisengye as his parents.
But on the NIRA birth certificate, he registered Thomas Gumisiriza and Resty Namirimu as the parents. On the mandatory birth certificate for minors travelling through any South African port of entry, the date was conflicting indicating February 7, 2005.
Another Jovan Katuramu with passport number A00971597 had first registered the date of birth of April 4, 2006 (though it had been cancelled) yet the passport had the date of birth as April 4, 2008.
Amir Kabanda, carrying passport number A00971600 also first registered the date of birth as July 25, 2006 for the National ID yet the passport had July 28, 2008 as his birthdate.
Other affected players were Enock Bagenda, Marvin Musaazi, Ronald Bwikizo (Ivan Ishimwe) and Samuel Kasule.
Importance
By the nature of the games and the $300,000 cash prize for the winner, there was great interest from government and other football bodies for the school to participate in the inaugural tournament.
Fufa had bought the air tickets of all 15 players while the Uganda Secondary Schools Sports Association (USSSA) had paid for the visas. The Speaker of Parliament Anita Among had given the team a cash gift of $5,000 and sports minister Peter Ogwang was keen on the team getting the visas.
The consular services were willing to give visas on condition the school presented authentic documents.
Ssemanda admits receiving Shs1.6m from the school through Fufa’s Finance Assistant Muhammud Kalema for facilitating the processing of Nira birth certificates and yellow fever cards. But the process hit a dead end with inconsistent entries.
“I resisted participating in a process with falsified documents especially after the CEO Edgar Watson refused to ask for a diplomatic note from the Ministry of Education and Sports. I could not expose myself to such stuff,” Ssemanda said.
No action has been taken at the moment with Ssemanda threatening legal action against CBS journalist Steven Birimunda, who opened the lid on the story on Twitter.
It is also not yet understood whether Royal Giants will forfeit the cash prize they won in Tanzania.
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