The Sports Department in Eastern Province has so far received less than half of its allocation under the 2015 National budget.
And most of the funds allocated to the department go towards personal emoluments and recurrent departmental charges.
Sports Development Officer, Edda Kanukula revealed this during Budget Tracking Programme on Breeze FM this morning.
Ms. Kanukula says from 533,000 Kwacha allocated to the department, about 300,000 Kwacha was for personal emoluments while about 208,000 Kwacha was for recurrent departmental charges.
Ms. Kanukula explained that under personal emoluments 185, 000 Kwacha had been released so far while only about 61,000 Kwacha had been released for recurrent departmental charges.
She indicated that the department had little activities where it was providing financial support to improve sports development because of poor funding.
Ms. Kanukula explained that last year, the department faced similar challenges because from a budgetary allocation of 282,000 Kwacha, only about 83, 300 Kwacha was released.
She says that this affected monitoring of different sports activities taking place in Eastern Province.
Meanwhile Ms. Kanukula was taken to task by callers who participated in the programme over unclear policy direction of the Department of Sports in Eastern Province.
One of the callers, Isaac Banda from Mfuwe said that he could not understand the objectives of the activities under the department because it was basically involved in monitoring sports.
Mr. Banda said that people were interested in seeing results of the public funds that are being spent by the Department of Sports.
And another caller, only identified as Mr. Chilekwa from Chipata pointed out that the department was a consuming department because all the money allocated was going towards personal emoluments and recurrent departmental charges.
He regretted that there was little money that has been going to supporting sports programmes in Eastern Province.
And another caller only identified as Mr. Ngámbi from Chipata said that the department needed to pull up its socks in order for its programmes and activities to have real impact.
He stated that it was unacceptable for the department to list participation of some colleges in national sports activities as successes when it was not funding their participation.
But Ms. Kanukula said that the Department needed good funding and support from various stakeholders if sports and other activities under the department were to improve and have impact.