By SANDRA MWILA –

SPORTS Minister Vincent Mwale says there is need to amend the Sports Council of Zambia (SCZ) Act to restore sanity to the running of sports in the country.
Mwale said that the SCZ Act had serious gaps that needed to be amended to avoid some of the conflicts the national sports mother body was facing with its affiliates.
“The SCZ Act needs to be strengthened because it has a lot of gaps. It should be amended before the end of this year as doing so would help resolve some of these matters with associations,” Mwale said.
He said this on Wednesday during a media briefing where he also disclosed that he had held a successful meeting with the SCZ board members who were summoned following a petition by associations.
The minister said he would make his verdict known on the matter by the end of this week after hearing from the two parties as the information gathered would help come up with a decision.
He said both parties were satisfied that they had been given an opportunity to be heard and that he would not delay to make a decision because he wanted sanity to return in the management of sports.
“I don’t want to discuss the outcome of the talks with the two parties, but what I can tell you is that I had successful meetings with them and I think both sides are satisfied that they have been heard,” he said.
Mwale wanted to sort out the matter and concentrate on other important issues that would bring about sports development.
“What I don’t want to do is just dismiss things and throw them away because at some point they will get bottled up and become dangerous to handle. So I have given chance to the petitioners and the petitioned so that we can come up with a common ground,” he said.