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Chronicle Reporter
INFORMATION Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo has hit out at the “scandalous” Zifa weekend elections which saw the shamed Cuthbert Dube retaining his position as president of the country’s football governing body.Dube won with 44 votes against 14 for Trevor Carelse-Juul during the vote which was held on Saturday.
Prof Moyo said it had to be stated “without fear or favour that the outcome of these elections was indecent and defied all rationality and purpose. What exactly was endorsed by this scandalous vote?”
Dube headed a Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) board that was sacked by Moyo last year after failing to come up with a turnaround strategy for the insolvent broadcaster where managers pocketed massive salaries without fail while ordinary workers went without pay for some seven months.
Dube also left the health insurer, PSMAS, where he was chief executive, in disgrace after it emerged he earned about $500,000 per month even as the company failed to pay service providers resulting in members struggling to access health care.
Prof Moyo said Zimbabwe’s football was also in the doldrums under Dube’s charge, adding the Zifa boss had “nothing to show” for reign in the last four years and “nothing different, new or better to offer”.
“Zimbabwean soccer today is clearly in the doldrums in every respect with its administration characterised by breath-taking chaos, incompetence and corruption with no precedence since our independence in 1980,” Prof Moyo said.
“The notion that the Zifa electorate voted for continuity is shamefully revealing. Continuity of what else besides naked and embarrassing failure?”
According to Moyo, the fact that Dube openly boasts about using personal resources to fund Zifa programmes, the source of which remains unclear, was a sign he had failed to run local football.
Zifa has struggled with serious financial problems for years with Dube reportedly reaching into his own “deep pockets” to bail the association out and ensure national teams manage to fulfil their fixtures.
“For the first time, Zifa affairs have become personalised and corrupted to the detriment of the national interest, let alone the values and ethos of the beautiful game,” said Prof Moyo.
“An example of this rot is how some elements within the Zifa leadership have had no shame in arrogantly boasting that they have been underwriting Zifa from their own personal pockets.
“Why would anyone use their own money from their own pockets to meet Zifa expenses? How deep are these pockets? What is the source of income of these deep and generous pockets?
“And if anyone has deep pockets to pay for all manner of Zifa expenses, does it not stand to reason that they can also buy their re-election to the Zifa leadership?
“And so, as we congratulate the winners of the Zifa election, it must also be pointed out that nobody is fooled by this circus whose corruption in terms of moral irresponsibility was exposed by the outcome of the election.
“The Zifa electorate has prepared a bed full of thorns and they must now lie on that bed themselves and perhaps with the leadership it voted for.
“Nobody else, particularly the general public, football supporters or even sponsors, should be expected to lie on that thorny and dirty bed. The buck should stop with the indecent outcome of the scandalous election.”
Online Reporter