LAHORE: Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) president retired Lt Gen Arif Hasan, for whom things have recently fallen fast into place, presented on Saturday a package of recommendations for bringing improvements in sports during a marathon five-hour long meeting attended by the provincial sports representatives as well as officials of almost 38 federations.

The POA chief was confident about the implementation of the recommendations made by him during the grand gathering organized by him and attended by almost all the sports stakeholders.

Responding to a question, fielded during the news conference held after the marathon meeting, whether he could be in a position to implement his recommendations in the absence of retiring federal secretary Sports Chaudhary Ijaz who approved them during the presentation, he said: “It is possible that the next secretary might be from the Inter-Provincial Sports Ministry.”

“Moreover, Federal Sports Minister Riaz Pirzada is still working. So, I am confident the government will press ahead with the same positive spirit which the incumbent secretary has shown regarding the recommendations.”

Answering yet another question, Arif admitted that interruptive policies in the past had damaged sports in the country. However, he stated that now time had changed, saying that the new federal secretary would have to follow in incumbent federal secretary’s footsteps.

Delving into the details of the implementation of the recommendations he made, the POA president whose body is an internationally-recognized one said that the onus lied on the government as the latter was bound to accomplish 80 per cent of the task in question while the rest was the responsibility of the sports federations.

“But once the recommendations are implemented, the country’s sports could be back on the track to meet international standard,” Arif claimed while stating that he gave a roadmap to achieving excellence in sports during his presentation.

The roadmap, the POA president said, laid emphasis on the promotion of sports at educational, Tehsil and district levels.

On the occasion, Arif cited instances of several countries where sports were integral part of the curricular activities in educational institutions.

Arif said that hue and cry was raised about the abundance of talent in Pakistan but explained it in the same breath that the same talent was being wasted due to poor policies of the government.

Earlier, Federal Sports Minister Riaz Pirzada also addressed the sports representatives attending the gathering wherein POA officials including secretary Khalid Mahmood apart from dozens of officials belonging to various sports federations were also in attendance.

Although, the federal sports minister left the venue earlier due to his pressing engagements, the sports secretary addressed the gathering before answering the questions put forward by officials of the sports federations.

In his speech, the sports secretary raised doubts over the existing transparency system in the sports federations. However, the chairman of the Pakistan Volleyball Federation (PVF) Chaudhary Mohammad Yaqoob questioned the secretary what kind of concerns the IPC secretary had got in his mind when the government’s grant to federations was just averaging Rs 1.5million per year.

“This is just peanuts for every federation as we have to beg well-off people for financial help,” he remarked.

Also, Punjab Olympic Association secretary Idrees Haider Khawaja asked the sports secretary to inform the gathering if the federal government was going to audit accounts of the National Games which were held in Islamabad in collaboration with the Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) which then backed the POA headed by Akram Sahi despite the fact the IOC-recognized POA had already organized the same Games in Lahore with a meager budget.

The secretary sports informed the attendees that a special audit of those Games was under way.

On the other hand, Pakistan Swimming Federation (PSF) secretary Majid Waseem raised the issue of ‘negativity’ of the PSB in the meeting, saying that the latter was yet to hold training camp for swimmers in preparation for next year’s South Asian Games, adding that the irony was that the PSB was not even explaining any reasons behind the delay.

The federal secretary also said that the new sports policy could be formed on the recommendations of the POA as it was in a better position to make suggestions.

Published in Dawn October 4th, 2015

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