New brooms for Paralympic Committee

registration and they were hoping that it would have been approved by now to pave way for the elections.

However, the constitution is still with the Sports Commission and the ZNPC have called for a special meeting on May 11 to be held in Harare so that they hold the elections in line with the International Paralympic Committee regulations, which require them to have elections within eight months after the celebration of the Paralympic Games.

Posts to be contested for are that of the president, vice-president technical, vice-president administration, secretary-general, vice-secretary-general and treasurer.
The current executive came into office in August 2010 and ZNPC secretary-general, Lewis Garaba said although their term of office has not yet expired they have to follow the guidelines from the International Committee.

“Our term office should be four years but according to the IPC we should not exceed eight months after the celebration of the Paralympic Games, which were held last year in September before holding elections and our eight months finishes on May 9 but we had to push the assembly to a weekend so that all our stakeholders attend.

“We have sent invitations to all our organisations and other stakeholders. It’s now being held under the special general assembly because our constitution has not yet been registered because we had made some amendments in line with IPC and some things we had noticed that needed to be amended,” said Garaba.

Garaba urged their various umbrella associations to pay their outstanding affiliation fees to be able to vote during next month’s elections.
“On nominees we have people with outstanding fees so we have given them up to April 20 and we should have the nominations by April 26. Those that would not have fully paid their affiliation fees will not vote.

“People can now forward their nominees but they should first clear outstanding fees,” said Garaba.

The national committee has five active umbrella associations – Association of Spinal Cord and International Sports, National Wheelchair and Amputee Sports Association, Zimbabwe Association of Sport for the Blind, Association of the Hearing Impaired Sports and National Sports Association for Persons with Intellectual Disability.
These associations will be represented by their presidents and secretary-generals at the special assembly.