adminclarify some inaccuracies contained therein.
I believe the investigation into Asiagate is such an important task, so much that every information volunteered or gathered has to be accurate and truthful, something I find is not the case, with my supposed submission.
As a respected journalist in the country and region, it is imperative to note that whatever I say carries with it some weight and value in the eyes of the public and for that, any untruths could be misleading and corrosive to the same public and could lead to an incorrect judgment.
When I appeared before this committee on March 25, 2011 from 1237hrs, not 1020hrs, I did so after repeated calls from Ndumiso Gumede to answer to some of their questions, specifically on the July 2009 Monomotapa United trip to Malaysia.
On the said day, I reiterated what I had said at a Press conference the previous month (February 2011 at PSMAS offices) that I do not believe their committee had the capacity to handle such a mammoth task.
Benedict Moyo, who was the most active member of the three available, said they had interviewed a lot of other people using that modus operandi.
The other two were Gumede and Fungai Chihuri at the interview that took place at Cresta Jameson Hotel.
He said: “For your own information we have dealt with a lot of people including coaches, players and officials and if I may be specific to you as a journalist, even Robson Sharuko gave his submissions, although he did not give us what we expected from him. Maybe he was trying to protect some people.”
My response to that was I did not have respect for a committee that wants to do investigations based on submissions and fail to have at least a recorder before them to capture everything, as it is said, instead of depending on scribbled notes captured by people without shorthand training.
I told Moyo that it was a bit funny that they wanted to interview a journalist, who they believe was against the exercise from the onset, yet they were ill-equipped for the task to which they promised to capture everything as accurately as said.
But, if what is printed in The Herald is indeed the report, then, I want to correct all inaccuracies in their report for the benefit of the Disciplinary Committee that will look into the submission to arrive at a judgment as fairly as the rule of natural justice demands.
I will touch on questions and answers with inaccuracies (not grammatical).
On the second question – When we started investigating the initial Malaysia Trip of December 2009, you were very much outspoken against it. What was the reason for it? Where you given a gag order and therefore wanted issues not to be talked about?
My response was: “I clearly told you as the Zifa board that you had no capacity to handle such a matter that involved a lot people including some, you will never be able to interview. This board is incompetent to handle such a task; remember I mentioned the same in that Press conference where you had the media wait for you for 37 minutes.”
The second part of that question was never asked and therefore the alleged answer was helicoptered for the reasons best known to the committee and I will not want to speculate why.
On the question – How did you come to be involved in the Monomotapa trip to Malaysia?
There are words attributed to me as saying: “As Monoz, we were also going to get a lump sum for participating in the two games”.
I never said that and what I said was: “We were not sure how many games we were to play but were told that the club were called in at the last minute after the national team could not be cleared to go and play in
Malaysia. For the club it was very important to have some game time as were to play Etoile du Sahel of Tunisia in the first Champions League match for the club and if we realise some dollars from it, then that would be good enough to motivate the players”.
Why Gumede and company decided to edit that out and add that part for me is baffling. I do not know how misrepresenting submissions would help arriving at a decision that will not be contested and could be used to take corrective measures against those deemed guilty.
On the question – Who received you when you arrived?- My answer was simply that there were two men, both drivers who were instructed to drive us to Kuala Lumpur, a distance of about 300km. We all did not know we were supposed to drive to Kuala Lumpur, we thought we were connecting by flight. Most of the answers attributed to me were confused to another question they asked me, but decided against capturing in the report.
The question was – You were supposed to be representing Zimbabwe and actually carried the Warriors kit. Who gave it to you and did they say why?
The other question which was a follow up to the above that the report failed to capture was – “Did you meet any agents or officials from Malaysia Football Club (they meant MFA)?” Again that was conveniently not captured. I had responded thus, “The issue of Warriors kit you asked me about is certainly not my job as you are aware at Monoz I am an official and do not sit on the bench. On the trip, my task was to do the stories for our website, which is my main job with the club, and I even sent reports that were published in The Herald – you may want to check with them. Moreso, Monoz do not keep Warriors’ uniform, I think someone at
Zifa House does. All I know is our team manager Clayton Munemo keeps the Monoz kit and we had it on the trip”.
This was not captured in the report but they chose to talk about the BBC interview, which in itself was a response to a separate question that said: Did you know that while you were still there you were dubbed imposters for wearing national team jersey as opposed to yours? My answer to that was that it was in fact me who had spoken to a gentleman, who introduced himself as a journalist from BBC who had chosen to speak to me because he had been refered to me as the travelling Zimbabwe journalist covering the tour, by organisers of the trip.
The Committee never asked me a question – Why were the agents misleading the Malaysians? And you can decipher from the answer they attributed to me that there is no link between the question and the answer and I am of sound knowledge and training that I would never offer such a damp answer unconnected to the question.
On the question – If, in Malaysia, they were expecting our national team, then why did we send a club? My response which they did not capture was: “My understanding was that Zifa had extended the invitation to
Monoz at the insistence of Malaysia FA who could not take the cancellation at the last minute as Zifa had indicated they could not raise a team at that short notice.
“If there was any other reason, it was never communicated to anyone including the Zifa board member and club owner, Solomon Mugavazi who travelled as HOD. It made sense for the team to get match practice ahead of the Champions League where they expected tougher opposition”.
The committee also decided to leave out a crucial question they posed to me as thus: Some submissions we have already said that Japajapa was angry that he did not travel with you on the trip as he usually does, why do you think he was angry. Could it be that he had been dropped?
All of my answer was ignored and instead presented as some of the things I said in response to their question. My answer to the above question, which they did not include in their submissions was this:
“By Japajapa, I hope you mean Godfrey, the PSL fixtures secretary (at the time). If he was angry I do not know but what he said was that Monoz will forfeit the match against Highway in Mutare scheduled for that Saturday because as PSL, the trip had not been sanctioned and therefore the team had credible reason for not fulfilling their league match . . .”
On the question – As a journalist, why did you people not pick it up early before the rot had set in? The full wording of the question was . . . “As a journalist, why did you people not pick it up early before the rot had set in. No journalist would tell us that they did not know about all these games as we were told there is a full roster of you all and matches that you can cover depending on the newspapers you work for?”
It is strange the same committee would take part of their question as my response. Only they know why they present the submissions with questionable truthfulness.
On the question – But, why were you gagged on it? This was just part of the question in which words attributed to me were the background in which Gumede said, journalists (a list of eight were called by name from both broadcast and print) were all under the armpit of Henrietta Rushwaya. My response to their question was also a question – “How do you know that journalists were gagged and would you prove that to them or their superiors?” This too, was not captured.
On the question: How much did the players receive? – the committee told me that all the players interviewed had told them that they received at least US$2 500 with coaches getting double while the team doctor Maungwa received nothing, it is baffling that they attribute that to me and ignored what I told them.
I told this committee that no one really know how much money the player received because it was paid direct to them. I told the committee that the club did not travel with Maungwa ( I suppose they meant Lloyd, the physio) but had Dr. Prosper Chonzi instead. So such inaccuracies cast a lot doubts into how much else has been wrongly attributed to people to secure a conviction.
On the question: What did the players sign for as allowance payments? My response was: “…remember I told you that nobody really knew how much the players received and the only other person who would, under normal circumstances know that, was Bla Far (Bekhi Ndlovu). But he too knew nothing, before he flew back ahead of us to prepare for the arrival of Etoile du Sahel because nobody knew who really was supposed to pay who and how much. In fact the Tunisians arrived in Harare ahead of us who had to travel via Mumbai, Addis Abbaba, Lubumbashi and these were the issues Far had to rush to sort out in Harare”.
But the committee attributed to me the words to the effect that . . . “The Zifa CEO surprised me by phoning Far who was leaving for home that day . . .” Only Moyo, Chihuri and Gumede know where they got that from. I never said that as it did not make any sense to me how I would have known the call to Far and link that to player’s allowance payments.
One needs not be a lawyer to pick a lot of grey elephants in the report, but the last thing this committee could do is misrepresent what I said and take that as a true record to be used for anything serious.
I keep records, more so of legal nature, I give extra attention to such matters because am a careful practitioner.
A the risk of being defensive, I wish to clarify that most of the submissions as attributed to me lack accuracy and in some cases truthfulness, while in some there are a lot grey areas as they attempt to present a report that points to certain obvious targets.
While the exercise is good, it is the modus operandi that is not.
The same interview that took exactly 67 minutes, according to my recorder, involved leaks of some people’ submissions especially what they alleged Robson Sharuko told them, what some named players said and a sight of some written submissions. That to me was indicative of an exercise whose operandi is flawed and vindictive as opposed to getting the truth.
Unashamedly Gumede hinted that he would retire when some of the “big fish are shut out of football”.
Why they could tell all that to just one journalist, an experienced one at that, only shows the naivety of the committee whose submission would leave the Disciplinary Committee with huge problems to secure a conviction.
While I cannot give a cut-by-cut of what I said and what they presented, this journalist is challenging the committee to refute my report above for their exercise to retain some measure of truth.
It would a miscarriage of justice to arrive at a decision based on this report, which is not a true record of what I said.
Online Reporter
Londile Moyo