National Council of Sports (NCS) is in the final stages of passing a comprehensive funding policy that will guide government’s contribution towards national associations and federations.

The revelation was made by the Acting General Secretary Dr. Patrick Bernard Ogwel during the first Minister’s Forum that is mandated the statutory instrument passed in 2014.

The state minister for sports, Hon. Charles Bakkabulindi, also the chairman of the forum, opened and closed the forum that lasted the greater part of Tuesday.

“(The) funding policy is in its late steps of review and will come into effect on July 1,” Dr Ogwel told the packed conference room that had 45 of the 48 associations attend and several Ministry of Education and Sports officials.

This was in response to questions about the yardsticks NCS uses to distribute money to NAs.

The under-secretary for the Ministry of Education and Sports Aggrey David Kibenge stated that “recent performances had positively changed the perception of sports in the ministry.”

“Netball, football and athletics have given us reason to set lots of things aside to find the money they need to travel.”

For the greater part of the debate, funding for sports dominated the debate. However, the symposium, also cited tax waivers, commercialization, infrastructure, legislation, human resource capacity building as critical to the industry.

NCS chairman Bosco Onyik, along with his board members, and the Commissioner for Physical Education and Sports Omara Apita attended the quarterly event that will be held again in August.