NAIROBI, Kenya, Dec 28 – Nandi Senator Samson Cherargei wants the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) as well as the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) involved in the fight against doping.
Cherargei says that the wider network in the doping shell should be uprooted for the vice to be dealt with for good.
“I want to ask the DCI and EACC that there are people administering these drugs to our athletes and they should be arrested. Even if it is a coach. Let us not only ban sportsmen and leave those who gave them the drugs, the pharmacies that sold these drugs,”Cherargei said in a public gathering in Nandi.
He added; “We know there are foreign coaches who come in with tourism visas and mislead our athletes with these drugs and when they are tested outside, they are found to be positive and it ends their careers.”
The Senator whose county produces some of the finest athletes in the country including Marathon world record holder Eliud Kipchoge has warned budding sportsmen against engaging in doping, as it poses a threat to their careers.
It comes at a time when more than 40 Kenyan athletes have been slapped with various bans, with two having been handed six and five year bans just last week.
Kenya was on the verge of landing a blanket ban from World Athletics due to the increase in number of doping cases and it took the government’s promise of an improved budgetary allocation to abate the country of the sanction.
Sports Cabinet Secretary Ababu Namwamba said the Ministry would employ a multi-agency approach to fight the vice, which includes an inter-ministerial team.
