adminPetros Kausiyo Deputy Sports Editor
A STORM is brewing in the Zimbabwe Karate Union following a controversial decision by the executive to postpone the staging of their annual meeting amid claims by the organisation’s president Paul Danisa there was need to amend the constitution.
Danisa wrote to members on February 27 advising them of the postponement of the annual meeting.
Surprisingly though, the ZKU’s actions have not torched any immediate reaction from the Sports Commission, who were quick to raise the red flag over the rescheduling of the ZIFA annual meeting and the football association’s election roadmap.
That the same Sports Commission, who have always stressed that they take a huge interest in matters of annual meetings of the association, have maintained silence on the ZKU’s move to flout their union’s constitution has raised eyebrows.
Inevitably, questions have arisen on whether the Sports Commission’s push on the football association was because the supreme sports body have vested interests in ZIFA affairs?
The Sports Commission were quick to warn ZIFA over the direction that Philip Chiyangwa’s leadership took pertaining to the association’s election roadmap, leading to a public fallout between the two bodies.
But, in the case of the karate body, that indaba has been postponed for reasons that have raised questions among the stakeholders, many of whom believe that Danisa should have used the occasion of the annual meeting to move the motion to make the conditional amendments he has been preaching about.
Some within the karate family suspect that the union’s president is not keen on holding elections anytime soon and “has chosen to hide behind the coming in of a new government in the country as one of the main reasons why the ZKU cannot stage an annual meeting yet the new dispensation that he alludes to has not pronounced any major policies that have forced associations into major constitutional changes’’.
“We would like to sincerely apologise to everyone for the delay in holding our elective AGM. So many things have changed in the administration of sport at large since the ushering in of a new dispensation.
“There are a number of policies that we are mandated to comply with for the smooth and effective running of National Sports Associations in Zimbabwe. Some of the deliverables would require us to realign our constitution with the National Sports Policy which is in place. “We are working with the SRC for guidance, once that process is complete, we shall advise of the AGM dates, which I believe would be between end of March and early April 2018. Kindly bear with us,’’ Danisa wrote.
But ZKU members contested the postponement.
“As members of ZKU, we are concerned about the failure of the executive to hold the AGM as dictated by the constitution. We are proud of our achievements in the last five years and we don’t want to throw that away because of a constitutional crisis, it won’t look good to our sponsors,’’ the member said.
Danisa, however, cited the clauses, which he said ought to be amended first but which the members believe should have been dealt with at the annual meeting instead of postponing the indaba.
Online Reporter