•Mutwii spoke a day after Nandi County Senator Kiprotich Cherargei proposed a raft of measures against athletes found guilty of violating anti-doping laws.
•Cherargei revealed that plans are taking shape in Parliament to review the relevant doping legislation.
Athletics Kenya (AK) vice-president Paul Mutwii, has expressed his satisfaction that Kenyan lawmakers have finally woken up and are ready to participate in amending the anti-doping laws.
Mutwii spoke a day after Nandi County Senator Kiprotich Cherargei proposed a raft of measures against athletes found guilty of violating anti-doping laws.
In a strong-worded statement, Cherargei urged the Directorate of Criminal Investigation (DCI) and the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to prosecute athletes found culpable of engaging in the vice — a request that Mutwii has endorsed.
Cherargei revealed that plans are taking shape in Parliament to review the relevant doping legislation.
"As a parliament, we will introduce more significant changes to the sports law, the ADAK act, as well as other important laws to fight this cancerous behaviour. We want the act of aiding and abetting the vice to be a criminal and economic offense," Cherargei said.
Responding to Cherargei's statement in an exclusive interview on Tuesday, Mutwii said the legislator's proposal was long overdue and even extolled him for raising the issue.
"We made a proposal last year to Parliament to look at ways to help us deal with this issue but we were told to resolve it through internal mechanisms," Mutwii said.
"We have no problem at all if our athletes are prosecuted for committing the crime. This is something we have always supported and Cherargei's response was late," Mutwii said.
In his statement, Cheragei described the recent report by the Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya (ADAK) where 22 Kenyan athletes were found guilty of doping violations as shocking, sad, and tragic.
Pointing out that Kenya is a well-known bastion of excellence in athletics, Cherargei said the evils can undermine the integrity of athletes in the country and the nation as a whole.
"So I call on the DCI and the DPP to pick up ADAK's report and give the country the true nature of this evil. The banning and approving of an individual athlete is not enough, the investigation and prosecution of the facilitators of these evils must be done," Cherargei said.
The senator suggested that strict measures should be taken against all the perpetrators of the evil that had spread in the country.
“The DCI, DPP, and EACC must step in to complete the investigation and prosecute the people who supply these banned drugs.
“Ministry of Health should also revoke or suspend medics, pharmacies, and hospitals who aid this vices pending investigations including regulating procurement and sale of the common two commonly abused drugs namely - triamcinolone acetonide and norandrosterone," he said.
Several Kenyan athletes have been banned for doping violations in the last few years. The latest case involves the reigning Prague Half Marathon and Lisbon Half Marathon champion Keneth Kiprop Renju who got a five-year ban.
“The Ministry of Sports must tell the country about the mechanisms put in place to ensure our athletes do not become easy targets of this unscrupulous enabler of the vice,” the senator said.
On October 29, Sports Cabinet Secretary Ababu Namwamba put rogue athletes and their handlers on notice, telling them that their days are numbered. Namwamba said that stringent measures will be taken against anyone found culpable of destroying the country's rich athletics heritage.