THE squabbles surrounding the Namibia Sport Awards refuse to die, as Disability Sport Namibia (DSN) launched a scathing attack on the event’s organisers yesterday.
The debate surrounding Paralympic double medallist Johanna Benson’s exclusion from the 2012 edition’s Sportswoman of the Year award category has tainted the build-up to the event taking place at the Safari Hotel in Windhoek tonight. DSN President Charles Nyambe questioned the credibility and competence of the awards committee, accusing them of ‘inconsistency, ignorance and discrimination against people with disabilities’.Nyambe asked why the same panel had allowed Benson to contest for the award after she had bagged a Commonwealth Games bronze medal in 2010. He added that in 2008, Reginald Benade won a bronze medal at the Beijing Paralympics Games but was barred from contesting the Sportsman of the Year award that year.’I don’t know whether she [Benson] was able-bodied in 2010 and now is disabled,’ Nyambe said. ‘This is most confusing to the nation and to DSN.’Nyambe called for an overhaul of the awards system and a review of the awards committee appointed by the Sports Commission.The committee must consist of qualified and experienced people, he said.’We would like to ask the Ministry of Youth, National Service, Sport and Culture to bring experts together in 2013 to workshop over issues of sports for those with and without disabilities with the aim of bridging the existing gap and educating the nation,’ Nyambe said. He also feels that the event’s chief sponsor, MTC, had meddled in the selection process. ‘Most importantly, the Sports Commission needs to retain the right to make critical decisions over the national awards event so that they have a voice of their own over such issues. We sympathise with the Sports Commission because it seems in some cases decisions are driven by the sponsors of the awards event. The Sports Commission are the experts in administering sports and must be given the liberty to make sports-related decisions that may affect their future reputation. There is need to review this partnership,’ Nyambe said. The head of the this year’s panel of judges, Helge Schutz, rejected Nyambe’s claims, saying that DSN’s representative on the committee, Pena Kandjii, who is also a sport commissioner, had been part of the entire process and had not objected to any of the developments. ‘It’s absolutely not true that MTC tried to influence the judging panel in any way. We informed MTC and NSC about our nominees a few days before the finalists were announced. They accepted our nominees and never questioned them. MTC upheld the independence and integrity of the judging panel from the start,’ Schutz said.Schutz added that they had consulted with South Africa’s sport awards panel of judges and researched other international award formats in order to formulate the domestic event. ‘They [South Africa] too had a similar situation to ours when Natalie du Toit was named Sportswoman of the Year in 2008. But they have changed their criteria since then to adapt to changing circumstances and international standards. They do have a Sport Star of the Year award where the public can also vote, which is open to all contestants,’ he said.’The top international sport awards in the world, the Laureus Sport Awards, also have separate categories for sportsman and woman of the year and disabled sportsman and woman of the year.’Since its inception in 2000 they have only included able-bodied athletes in the sportsman or woman of the year category and disabled athletes in the disabled sportsman or woman of the year category,’ Schutz said. Nyambe also said that the higher prize money and larger trophies for the abled-bodied categories made the disabled categories less prestigious. He said further evidence of prejudice was that there was no award for junior disabled sportsman and woman of the year. In addition, the sportsman and sportswoman of the year awards have always been handed over by the highest-ranking official present at the function, whereas the disabled sportsman and sportswoman of the year awards have been handed over by a commissioner responsible for disability sport.Also, the sportsman and woman of the year awards have always been the last items on the evening’s agenda, meaning that they are the most prestigious, said Nyambe. ‘The impression created by the above translates that the positions of sportsman and woman of the year are most prestigious therefore signify the most outstanding sports male and female achiever in the country in that particular year. Ask any person on the street today, they will agree with this statement,’ Nyambe said.’We have made mistakes in the past but we decided to rectify that to adapt to changing circumstances and international standards,’ said Schutz.
