The Uganda Rowing Federation has urged the government to intervene and help them acquire the Rowing boats which were donated to them by the World Rowing Federation through the Uganda Olympic committee.
Batenga Nakisozi, the Uganda Rowing technical advisory board Secretary said that Uganda Rowing Federation was given 18 boats in September 2020 to help train more youth in rowing but have not been able to get them because of heavy taxes that were levied by the customs office.
According to Nakisozi, the taxes that were levied accrue to a total of shs107m after paying the shipping taxes of shs77m and storage cost of shs50m. “Rowing is an expensive game whereby each boat costs between shs42m to shs70m which the federation cannot manage,” noted Nakisozi.
“We are supposed to use the donated boats for both Palarowing and Rowing but currently, we share the few available boats which are also leaking,” she added. Nakisozi implored all concerned authorities to give tax exemption to the donated sports gear and equipment saying, because it helps a lot to raise the Ugandan flag whenever participants outcompete their counterparts from other countries.
The new donated boats were meant to help add on the old stock being used, that many youth are trained in the game and also help Uganda become a Rowing Regional hub in Africa.
Cathleen Noble the Rowing olympian 2020 has said, she wants to concentrate on training many ladies because there are very few in Rowing and even build local clubs which will compete against each other before thinking about Olympics.
“But we are still challenged by the few boats among other necessary equipment,” she expressed, urging the Uganda government to engage the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) in having the taxes waived off the donated boats.
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