The Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Development has denied allegations made in a press statement in a section of the media and a video clip that its officials shared some monies donated to the men and women basketball teams ahead of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
In a statement signed by the Ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Ismaila Abubakar, the following clarifications were made:
1. The Two Hundred and Thirty Thousand dollars ($230,000) donated to the basketball teams by banks under the Adopt-a-Team programme of the ministry is intact in the Nigeria Basketball Federation’s (NBBF) official domiciliary account domiciled with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
2. That only the 12 female team members of D’Tigress have supplied their foreign account numbers. The Ministry waited for the account numbers of the male team to be supplied so that the processing of payments can be one-off as requested by the CBN.
3. The Ministry has requested the CBN to commence the processing of the payment to the female basketball players immediately. The male will be paid as soon as their account details are supplied.
4. Ministry wishes to state further that all outstanding Olympics and Paralympics Games allowances and bonuses are being processed and only slowed down by funds availability.
Furthermore, the Ministry of Finance has been fully furnished with details of the outstanding allowances and payments due to the NBBF and the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) and efforts are being made to secure the release.
It would be recalled that the Nigerian women basketball team in a video that has now gone viral, have threatened not to honour the basketball World Cup qualifiers coming up in February due to unpaid bonuses and allowances owed them by the NBBF and the Nigeria Ministry of Youth and Sports Development.
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