This archive report was first published on 24 July 2019.
On July 22, 2019, Sports Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed made history by becoming the first sports minister to visit Riadha House, the headquarters of Athletics Kenya (AK), since 2006. She was accompanied by Sports Chief Administrative Secretary Hassan Noor Hassan during the tour of facilities at the AK headquarters in Nairobi.
During her visit, Amina held a consultative meeting with AK President Jackson Tuwei, chairmen from each of the 16 AK regions, affiliates, and top athletes. She emphasized the need to tackle the doping menace and expressed her commitment to ensuring that doping is eradicated in Kenya's athletics.
"We want to ensure we tackle the doping menace once and for all. We need to have it at the bare minimum as we construct firewalls by monitoring, evaluating and guiding the process of ensuring it is eradicated for good," Amina said.
She also assured AK of full cabinet and parliament support in ensuring the bill criminalising doping is assented to by the highest office. Amina appealed to AK to work together to regulate change of allegiance among athletes, citing the difficulty in curbing athletes who wish to switch nationality due to Kenya's bilateral understanding with several countries.
Recently, Kenyan runners have been winning gold for oil-rich countries, with the latest being 800m runner Nelly Jepkosgei, who assumed the nationality of Bahrain. Amina acknowledged that regulating change of allegiance is possible but requires cooperation from all stakeholders.
