Jiro found guilty, banned!

Sports Reporter

BERNARD JIRO’s reign at the helm of the Harare Basketball Association (HBA) has come to an end.

The firebrand administrator was last week banned for five years after being found guilty of financial misappropriation.

In their verdict a disciplinary committee that was set up to investigate the matter claimed Jiro had admitted to misusing the money as HBA owed him.

“In the case against Bernard Jiro, the disciplinary committee finds him guilty of misappropriating public funds by receiving money from a sponsor and not submitting it to the appropriate office for distribution and accounting,” reads part of the ruling.

“B Jiro entered into a consignment agreement with a sponsor; no written agreement with terms and conditions was submitted to HBA for reference and acceptance.

“B Jiro self-administered the agreement through the period without disclosing the terms and conditions to any member of the executive

“B Jiro received cash from the arrangement, on receiving he was not accompanied by any HBA Executive. Meaning the actual amounts received cannot be verified.

“B Jiro did not submit the cash received from the arrangement to HBA, but instead pocketed it.

“B Jiro admitted in a congress meeting to having pocketed the money. His excuse being that HBA owed him money.”

HBA will debit the amount that Jiro is said to have misused to the account of South Central Basketball Club, where Jiro is an executive member.

Meanwhile, Jiro maintains his innocence.

“I write to you to expose the ongoing plot by the Basketball Union of Zimbabwe, in cahoots with the Harare Basketball Association, to silence me from demanding amongst other urgent things outstanding audited financials from the mother body for the past decade,” reads a letter the administrator wrote soon after the verdict was announced.

“To say this (verdict) was an attempt at being procedural after the fact is to put it mildly.

“Initiating the ‘Vote of no Confidence’ in me before getting a conviction was an obvious blunder that HBA sought to rectify, albeit belatedly.

“Please note that SRC have not yet come up with a verdict, ever since I appealed to them, and as such I personally do not see where the HBA gets jurisdiction on a matter currently under SRC review.

“BUZ was directed to stop HBA from deliberating further on this matter pending the SRC verdict. Also, scheduled HBA presidential Elections to ‘replace me’ were even halted by SRC, and so why is HBA being so brazen as to trial me in absentia having given me a woefully short notice?”