SRC’s hands are tied: Siwela

Petros Kausiyo Deputy Sports Editor
SPORT and Recreation Commission chairman Edward Siwela has admitted that their search for a substantive director-general has taken too long but insists his board was battling to resolve the matter despite “having their hands tied’’. The Sports Commission will, on April 30, clock exactly two years without a substantive director-general since Charles Nhemachena’s retirement in March 2016.

Joseph Muchechetere has been acting director-general during that period.
The SRC are also in contravention of the Sport and Recreation Commission Act, which has no provision for an acting director-general.

Siwela literally blamed bureaucratic bottlenecks associated with the public sector for the lethargy with which the director-general’s position has been dealt with at the Commission.

“It’s a matter that we have handled, it’s matter that we continue to work on but it’s a complex scenario given that we are a public entity and the situation would no doubt have been different had we been a private entity.

“We hope that soon we should finalise the matter and I am keenly aware of the issues that are there with regards this position and we continue to attend to the matter but unfortunately at this point I cannot give you much detail about it,’’ Siwela said.

There had been hopes that the Commission would clear the anomaly when the board conducted interviews for the job but they re-advertised the post and since then, very little progress has been made.

Siwela said while it might have sounded an easy path, the bid to replace Nhemachena has not been that easy.
“It’s not as cut and dry as people would like to think but that is not to say we are not doing anything about it together with our authorities,’’ Siwela said.

The Commission was created by an Act of Parliament Chapter 25:15 of 1991, revised in 1996 and derive their mandate from the Act and report to the Government, through the Ministry of Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation, to oversee the general running of sport and recreation programmes by the country’s national sport associations.

They are a parastatal, which came into existence after the 1989 Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the organisation of sport and recreation in the country, which recommended the creation of the SRC, which came into being on September 1, 1991, through an Act of Parliament Chapter 25:15 of 1991, revised in 1996.

The Act empowers the Sports Minister, after consultations with the President and subject to such directions as the President may give, to appoint the commissioners, who are known as the board, and are made up of a chairman and not fewer than five and not more than nine other members.

The director-general is an ex-officio member of the board, but, unlike the commissioners, is not appointed by the Sports Minister, but is instead, an appointee of the board itself, in terms of the SRC Act Chapter 24, with the minister being called in to provide approval for their choice.

In April last year, a number of potential candidates, including Muchechetere, were interviewed for the post, but the SRC board said none of the individuals met their expectations.

The SRC board then flighted another advert in the country’s mainstream newspapers calling for those interested in the position to apply.

However, it has since emerged the decision to leave the SRC under the stewardship of an acting director-general is unlawful as it violates the very law that provided for the founding of the country’s supreme sport regulatory body.

The Commission have also been hamstrung by their failure to have a legal department despite presiding over 53 associations that have varying challenges which include governance issues and several disputes over constitutional matters.

Siwela, however, said his board was aware of the legalities that could be involved on the matter, and had worked on that.
Amid the concerns it has emerged that unlike in the past when one would naturally be promoted after serving in an acting capacity for six months before the moved had been tested in court.

Harare Legal expert, Tim Sangarwe, who previously served in the ZIFA disciplinary committee structures said that the right to promote an employee is vested in the employer.

“The courts have ruled that acting in a post higher than one’s official post for whatever period does not translate to a right to promotion. The refusal or failure to promote an employee substantively does not fall within definition of an unfair labour practice, unless the failure to do so is unfair,’’ Sangarwe said.