Sources at the USA Embassy in Kenya have revealed that officials from the Ministry of Sports are to blame for Ferdinand Omanyala’s VISA hitch.
This is after details emerged that 32 joyriders were sneaked out of the country to attend the World Athletics Championships in the USA last week on Friday.
According to sources at the US Embassy who did not wish to be named, the plan by Kenyan sports officials was to sneak out the joyriders on the first batch of travellers in order to avoid detection from US embassy officials who were issuing the VISAs.
“The reason why the ministry officials included Omanyala and Jackson Tuwei (Athletics Kenya President) in the last batch was meant to hoodwink embassy officials since they knew the star sprinter and the federation president could not be left,” the source at the US embassy revealed.
The source further revealed that Athletics Kenya (AK) had presented a list of 80 athletes and officials to the ministry only for the US embassy to receive a list of 112 names, 32 of who are unknown to AK.
Upon realising that the names on the list given by the ministry of sports exceeded the one by AK, the US embassy declined to issue extra VISAs, the source revealed.
Another source told a local daily that a number of ministry officials assigned on the issuance of VISAs colluded with the 32 joyriders who parted with Ksh2 million each for their names to be added to the list.
Omanyala was issued a VISA after intervention by senior government officials and managed to travel to the USA yesterday evening.
“I have been called to go and pick up the passport, that my visa is ready. This is a huge relief. Now my hope is that I will be in Oregon before the race starts, my race is scheduled around 4 am Kenyan time, that’s Saturday morning,” Omanyala said.