By FELIX MALUNGA  –
THE Sports Council of Zambia (SCZ) has asked the National Olympic Committee (NOC) to consider joining the national sports authority as a department.
Reacting to proposals for the two bodies to merge to avoid overlapping on each other’s roles,

. Kalenga

SCZ chairperson Mwamba Kalenga said NOC was welcome to become a department at the National Sports Development Centre (NASDEC).
Kalenga said in an interview in Lusaka yesterday that there was no way SCZ and NOC could be merge because the latter was more like a department of Zambia’s sport’s governing body.
“Before they become NOC locally, they must register with Sports Council as an affiliate. We are saying NOC is welcome to Sports Council as just a department. We will give them a desk as a department where they will be working within the Sports Council.
“Those (NOC) are only like travel agents because they become active when there are games and teams are going out. They organise the travel to take the athletes and those athletes are Zambians who fall under the Sports Council,” Kalenga said.
He said NOC were not an autonomous body because they were an affiliate of SCZ which was a Government agent running Zambian sport.
Kalenga charged that when SCZ has its annual general meeting, all its members including NOC attend the august gathering as affiliates.
He said NOC, a Zambian Chapter of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), had no independent affiliates and that the athletes who participate at Olympics, Commonwealth and All Africa Games all come from SCZ’s affiliate associations.
“NOC uses our affiliates, they don’t have affiliates of their own. How do we merge (with NOC)?  They are just a department within the Sports Council. Sports Council has never interfered whenever NOC are going out. It’s them who are crying that they want more than they have,” the SCZ chief said.
Kalenga stated that Olympic Chapters in Malawi, South Africa, Swaziland and Zimbabwe joined the sports councils to ensure there was no fragmentation in institutional governance.
Government has hinted that it may consider merging SCZ and NOC to avoid the two bodies from overlapping on each other’s roles.