Olympics Kenya has moved swiftly to defend itself against grave allegations of corruption and mismanagement of funds during the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.
This comes a couple of days after Senate Labour and Social Welfare secured the Speaker’s nod to summon Olympics Kenya's top brass after Nandi Senator Samson Cherargei filed a petition alleging many athletes and other team members were mistreated, leading to dismal performance.
Olympics Kenya president Paul Tergat, however, swung into action to dispel the accusations, reiterating their hands are clean.
“We are clean and we have nothing to hide. Whatever you are seeing is just but social media buzz that will come to pass. For us, we are the most dependable team that Kenya has ever had,” said Tergat.
Tergat said being former athletes themselves, they could not think of riding on the back of other athletes.
“Majority of us who are leading this team are former athletes and we understand what it takes to be one. We cannot engage in funds mismanagement yet we were there during those days. We care much about athletes and that is why integrity had to come first before anything else,” said Tergat.
Chef De Mission Waithaka Kioni said he had the option to carry the money to Tokyo but requested the Ministry of Sports to bank it.
“Before heading to Tokyo, I was told to carry money in cash but my integrity could not allow me to do that and decided that the money should be deposited in a bank account, not me. I went there very clean and returned clean too,” said Kioni, who is the Kenya Volleyball Federation (KVF) president.
Only a fortnight ago, 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games Chef de Mission Stephen Soi was jailed after being found guilty of mismanaging funds meant for athletes. Soi was judged alongside former Cabinet Secretary for Sports Hassan Wario who was, however, freed after paying a fine.
