The Uganda Swimming Federation this week released plans for an Olympic-size pool in Namboole, but the organization remains $6.5 million short of funding for the project.
Designs were released for the aquatic center to be housed as the Mandela National Stadium, with 50-meter competition pool, a 50-meter warm-up pool and a diving area.
Plans for an aquatic center have been in the works since at least 2017, when the USF believed it had an agreement with funding from the Hungarian government, but that fell through. Janet Museveni, Uganda’s minister of education and sports, is behind the project, hoping to open it to not just fostering elite swimmers but athletes in other sports for conditioning as well as the general public. A story in the Daily Monitor notes that the designs dropped weeks before an election to the USF on March 13.
USF president Moses Mwase said that he “expect(s) the government to fund up to 80 percent of the project,” before fundraising can be approached.
The Mandela National Stadium is the largest athletic facility in Uganda. It has been the source of recent controversy, with sporting stake-holders like Museveni and sports minister Hamson Obua lobbying to save the facility from being purchased as part of, “a spate of land grabbing activities.” Its future was secured by the discovery of long-missing land titles last summer.
“There is a commercial aspect to this project and there are concerns about its management but that is why we are getting involved early,” Mwase told the Daily Monitor. “However, we can’t go far before the baby is delivered. Let us first lock things in.”