Lecturer Bemoans Allocation To NISports

ASenior Lecturer with the National Institute for Sports (NISports) Francis Akinremi, has criticised the allocation to the institution in 2013 budget, saying it might not be enough to achieve its objectives.

From the N9 billion allocated to sports, the NISports had the lowest allocation of N500 million.

 The Chairman of the Academic Staff Union of Research and Study at the institute, Akinremi told newsmen in Lagos that financial constraints were adversely affecting the programmes of the institution.

“When you talk in terms of NIS, if the budget is too small for NIS we might not be able to achieve our stated goals and objectives as being incorporated in the decree that actually established NIS.

“Let’s take for instance, training of coaches in Nigeria or maybe training of elite athletes and we are going to be involved maybe with our Abuja planning.

“It might not go well for us without any financial backing because we still need more hands, we still need more professionals for advanced countries to exchange of ideas and at the same time interpersonal relationships.

“And if you are to have bilateral relationships these are some of the things that would involve money.

“If you are to invite people from outside the country, to camp the person, to feed for a year or to do a lot of things, so the amount might not be enough.

“And more importantly we talked about research and research with modern equipment is going to go into a large sum of the money especially a lion share of the money given to NIS.

“And if all of these things are not adequately provided I think we’re still going to run into problems of planning and execution of sport process in the country.”

He said financial constraints were not only a problem peculiar to Nigeria, adding that it was a global one due to the economic melt down.

Akinremi called for the involvement of the private sector to support the institute, stressing that it would go a long way in helping the institution to achieve its objectives.