‘We are in a big mess’

Robson Sharuko
Senior Sports Editor
AN EXPLOSIVE dossier compiled by the Premier Soccer League Finance and Administration Manager, Cuthbert Mutandwa, paints a sorry picture of a top-flight league being torn apart by vicious boardroom battles within its secretariat and questionable corporate governance systems that he claims are stifling the growth of its brand.Mutandwa, who was recently suspended from the PSL after a row with his bosses, had prior to his suspension authored a damning report, which was sent to the PSL board member (finance) Webster Chikengezha, and copied to the league’s chairman, Twine Phiri.

The former Masvingo United and Mwana Africa official claims, in his dossier, that he was reduced to a mere stooge, at the PSL, with all powers allegedly taken by chief executive, Kenny Ndebele, and the way the financial affairs were being handled had resulted in the top-flight league “operating from hand to mouth because of our failure to exercise proper financial management.”

Mutandwa claims the PSL remained trapped in a quagmire of paralysis, despite its massive potential to become a thriving football organisation, the strategic plan drawn in 2012 was abandoned the moment it was adopted, sponsors continue to be given a raw deal leading to discontent among those who have partnered the league and the league’s handling of its financial transactions was questionable.

He lists key critical areas, in his dossier, regarding the PSL and says:
This is an organisation that had its strategic plan beginning of 2012 and it is 24 months without anything to show how to implement the plan.
We are an organisation without written down systems and procedures, strategies and policies. If one is to come and ask we will verbally tell (them) but having nothing to show in writing. This makes us end up doing things haphazardly.

We are an organisation with positions but not structures where anyone can do anything regardless of an issue not falling under one’s portfolio.

We have departments run by managers without subordinates, a first of its kind in professional set-ups. Some of the positions seem to have been created in order to have close colleagues instead of serving the purpose they were created for.

This is an organisation who are still squatting at someone’s property but with a potential of having a place we call our own. We budgeted for the purchase of property for the past two years but all things are being turned down and given a blind eye.

This is an organisation using furniture that was bought during the days of Chris Sibanda and Morrison Sifelani and it is really a sorry state of affairs. We are not comfortable, most of the time, to host corporate because of the state of our offices. They are in a sorry state for an organisation receiving US$226 000 per year.

This is an organisation operating what it calls an office in Bulawayo where a Secretary is based and using a broken desk and sitting on a stool, rentals of US$631 are paid every month for an office serving no purpose. All executive members visiting Bulawayo do not know where this office is and meetings are done at hotels in Bulawayo.

The CEO is still travelling in a taxi, (why not purchase a Mercedes Benz for US$15 000 from Japan or UK?). Recently the chief executive officer had to hire a car for an assignment in Chiredzi to the tune of US$1 795. Not even clubs would agree to the hiring of vehicles at the expense of purchasing a League vehicle.

This is an organisation that is holding sponsors at ransom and lacks respect. Sponsors are hard to find and that is why we have remained with Mbada Diamonds who are a disgruntled lot because of our behaviour towards them and it is a thing that needs attention for it would not be in the interest of football to lose such sponsors because of loose talk.

Mutandwa claims that contrary to the widely-held view that the domestic Premiership was improving, as a top-flight league, the brutal reality was that no progress was being recorded because the league had dumped corporate governance and was now being run as a personal project by some people.

He said the way the league had handled its affairs this year will certainly make it difficult, if not impossible, for Chikengezha to present an acceptable financial report to the assembly when it meets to review this season’s operations.
“(It’s) not that the Finance and Administration Manager does not know how to manage but (he is) regularly told that he must not do anything but just take orders from the chief executive officer,” says Mutandwa in his dossier.

“Yes, the position reports to the chief executive officer, but reporting what when everything starts and ends with the CEO? Efforts to ask for recourse on the matters of who should be responsible with financial matters of the organisation were met with threats of dismissal and accusations that you are not the right person for the job.

“With our case here, the CEO gives instructions to the Bookkeeper to give to the Finance and Administration Manager. Engaging the CEO
on the matter, the response is the same, you are not the right person for the job and I choose whom I want to communicate with and you cannot tell me how I should run my organisation.”

Mutandwa attaches confidential correspondence, in his dossier, generated from the operations of the league to highlight the level of conflict that existed within its management structures and how some of the decisions made were in conflict with corporate governance expected at such a public entity.

The attachments also highlight how the manual ticketing system, adopted by the PSL, is prone to leakages and in just one game between Dynamos and Monomotapa at Rufaro on October 2, 2011, there was a discrepancy of 200 tickets which were either missing, whose ticket books were missing or not recorded.

“We are using manual ticketing system, no minutes are produced and kept as a record by the office but are kept as a secret,” says Mutandwa in his dossier.

“It is from these minutes where there are resolutions that need implementation by the Mancom (management committee) but are not availed to anyone and are kept by the CEO.

“Auditors were concerned at the last audit when it took a week to produce the minutes since they were not in office and we had to wait for the CEO to bring them from Bulawayo. It was a concern raised by the auditors and they even mentioned that the minutes were more of notes than proper minutes.”

Mutandwa claims the PSL leaders will have a challenge, one day, explaining their operations and convincing people to accept their story.
“We shall one day stammer if questions are raised on how we are using the money,” Mutandwa says in his dossier.
“It needs positive minds to see sense in the above scenarios. ‘Tichabaiwa nekunwa poison nekunyara kureva chokwadi’, sometimes hiding behind keeping relationships at the expense of the organisation.”