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Augustine Hwata Senior Sports Reporter
ZIFA will be under the microscope with Parliament expecting the national football governing body to deliver a credible poll when the association holds elections for leaders of its various structures, including its president and board members, early next year.The Zifa leaders are expected to appear before the portfolio committee on Education, Arts, Sports and Culture at the Parliament Building in Harare today after a scheduled meeting between the two parties failed to materialise yesterday with the football leaders failing to show up.
Zifa had been expected to meet the legislators together with representatives of the Sports Commission and the Zimbabwe Olympic Committee but while the SRC and the ZOC were at Parliament Building yesterday, the football leaders were not there.
A member of the committee, Chris Chitindi (MP Muzarabani South), directed the SRC to ensure that Zifa avail themselves before their committee today, failure of which would be viewed as contempt of parliament.
SRC director-general Charles Nhemachena, who led his team of board member Aisha Tsimba and director for sports development and Daniel Kuwengwa, was tasked by the legislators to find out why Zifa had defied the directive to appear before the committee.
Nhemachena has since written to Zifa to seek clarification with the association, saying they were not aware that they had been summoned to appear before the committee.
Zifa communications manager Xolisani Gwesela said his superiors did not receive any communication that they were supposed to appear before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Education, Sport, Arts and Culture yesterday.
“As Zifa, we were not aware that we were supposed to appear before the committee. We did not receive any communication to that effect,” said Gwesela.
“We would like to state that we could never have rejected the offer to give our evidence before the Parliamentarians.”
But Zifa have another chance to appear before the committee today and the issue of the association’s compromised funding base and the forthcoming elections is likely to take centre stage with the association’s plan to charge as much as US$10 000 for anyone who wants to battle for a position a huge talking point.
Temba Mliswa (MP Hurungwe West), the former Warriors’ fitness coach who also had a short spell as Dynamos chairman, heads the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Education, Sport, Arts and Culture, whose other member is former PSL chairman Tapiwa Matangaidze (MP Shurugwi South).
Yesterday Matangaidze said as legislators, their supervisory role was meant to ensure that Zifa deliver a credible election.
“As legislators, we are coming in a supervisory role, not as participants, and we want the best people to run our football,” Matangaidze said.
“The concern, mainly, is how do we make the elections a better process, how do we give it more credibility so that, at the end of the day, the best person wins.
“There are a lot of issues that have come up. The first issue is that the world over elections are harmonised, even the national elections we had in July were all harmonised, things were all in the basket, councillors were in the basket, MPs were in the basket, so that no one has the unfair advantage of knowing a result that has the potential to have an effect on a further result.
“Zifa should take a leaf from that and have harmonised elections, the day they are supposed to be having elections for the area zones, that’s the same day they are supposed to be having elections for the provinces and the same day for the Zifa board.
“As these results come out, there are no surprises and there would be nobody who would be prone to be manipulated, as it where, and as people campaign, they campaign on their own merits and not as a group.”
Matangaidze said the other issue they wanted dealt with, to ensure that it doesn’t put other people interested in taking up administrative posts at Zifa at a disadvantage, concerned the fees to be paid by candidates.
“We had participation fees that were laid out in US dollars when the last election was held in 2010,” said Matangaidze.
“Surely, you can’t tell me inflation has gone 100 percent fold for people to justify this huge jump in participation fees, so, we don’t see the merits in these huge jumps.
“It means poor people like the chairman (Temba Mliswa) and I can never be near Zifa because we cannot afford to raise the money.
“I think that has to be stopped.
“They might argue that the electoral process has to fund itself, yes, we agree but show us the budgets, where are the high jumps in the cost factors, is it the allowances, hotel accommodation, paying election officers, all this has to be in the public domain, it belongs to the public domain.
“That way we will promote transparency. What has been happening in the past, there have been allegations that the electoral college, the people who vote are bussed in to some destination, are holed up in some hotel and the vote is influenced that way.
“We want to move away from that because we want to sell a credible election to the Government, to Parliament, to the sponsors and if Zifa does its job well, and nobody is pointing fingers after elections, that would be in the best interest of the sport.”
Mliswa said it was painful that Zimbabwe was failing to win medals at the Olympic Games because the Sports Commission has not done enough in fulfilling their mandate.
“The reason why Zifa are insolvent is because you (SRC) are failing to superintendent over the associations, like how much is coming from the International Rugby Board and how much is going into rugby?
“SRC allow associations to go unaudited and no wonder why money is not coming into sport. No organisation brings their money where there is no audit and there is no corporate governance,” said Mliswa.
But Nhemachena said sport was failing to development because of the general environment where funding was limited from both the Government and the corporate sector.
“Basically our challenge revolves round the issue of finances. The custodians of the sport disciplines and people who are supposed to make sure that there is a high performance programme are the national associations.
“Our national sports associations do not get any funding for development purposes from Government and this is unlike what occurs in other countries where funding for development comes from Government.
“Over the years, when we bid for resources for sports development, we have failed to get anything, but when we have an event taking place, chances are high that we get resources,” said Nhemachema.
Nhemachena said Treasury has undertaken to give US$45 million for the construction of a Games Village for the Zone Six Youth Games at NUST next year yet the same authorities were reluctant to release funds for sports development at times.
“I do not think that we would have got the US$45 million had we asked for the money to spruce up development but we tend as country to be reactive and do things under pressure.
“We have been asking for funds in the region of US$10 million every year but we are getting around a million to US$1,4 million.
“Half of that goes towards salaries and the rest is supposed to be available for everything else that has to do with sport.
“So that is our serious challenge in that there has not been a deliberate investment towards sport in Zimbabwe when we know for a fact that from year one to year two, we can expect to invest so much and make long-term plans based on the calculations of making such resources being available.”
Online Reporter