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ZIFA have reacted angrily to claims of financial impropriety made by sports consultant Tinashe Mapuranga during a Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation Television football programme, Game Plan on Monday dismissing them as sensational and false.
The under-fire association said they were not amused by Mapurnaga’s sentiments and denied that he ever worked in the ZIFA structures.
“Mapuranga claimed to have held positions which he never worked in during his tenure at the local football governing body hence ZIFA seeks to correctly inform the nation of the nature of their engagement with Mapuranga while he was a ZIFA associate,’’ said ZIFA on their website..
ZIFA then released a statement from their chief executive Jonathan Mashingaidze:
“We have seen Tinashe Mapuranga granting interviews to print and electronic media and masquerading as a sports consultant, he is also claiming that he was a ZIFA protocol officer.
“We are aware that Mapuranga is yet to train as a sports consultant and ZIFA has never used him for its training programmes because he did not possess the requisite qualifications.
“His assignments at ZIFA were confined with adhoc and minor missions at hand then.
“He was relieved of his duties on account of dishonesty. He also had inadequacies and serious deficiencies in terms of dealing with our structures.
“Mr Mapuranga also had propensity to leak confidential information for a fee. He demonstrated gross failure to account for financial resources given to him ahead of provincial awards ceremonies.
“Mr Mapuranga’s claim that he was a member of the protocol committee are false. Protocol relations activities fall under the mainstream protocol committee and he was never a member of that particular committee. We dismiss Mapuranga’s wayward behaviour with the contempt it deserves.
“Any organisation or individual that has had an interaction with Mapuranga during which he could have purported to be a ZIFA employee should report such incidents to the nearest ZIFA provincial office or the head office’’.
Mashingaidze used the same website to dispute sentiments attributed to ZIFA vice-president Omega Sibanda in the media regarding loans advanced to the association by its president Cuthbert Dube.
“The suspended vice-president is in the habit of borrowing money from the members of staff and demanding to be accommodated at expensive hotels and claiming expensive transport means. His comments in the media against Dr Dube smack of an individual who has no idea of how ZIFA has survived up to this day.
“Dr Dube has been helpful to the association as evidenced by the service he has given to Zimbabwean football.
“The man has no sense of confidentiality and that has been his problem ever since he got near football.
“Some of the information that he has been giving to the media was extracted on the minutes of the ZIFA board’s meetings. This conduct is chargeable in terms of the ZIFA statutes. Normally, the vice-president is supposed to complement the president but this has not been the case,’’ Mashingaidze said.
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Online Reporter