Why BAA does not support Montsho
Lekopanye Mooketsi | Tuesday February 10, 2015 18:00
Addressing the BAA Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Saturday, Moesi said the association is prejudiced in the case and cannot support the athlete since it strives for a drug free sport as demanded by the IAAF and World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA. He said a Disciplinary Committee, which was composed of an attorney, a medical doctor and a sports physiologist has concluded its deliberations on Montsho’s case and forwarded recommendations to the IAAF for endorsement.
He said they expect the matter to be dealt with in the next two weeks. “This case has brought about issues that need to be addressed quickly so that we clean our sport from drug use.
Clubs and coaches should educate their athletes on drug use so that we avoid a repeat of what happened. This should be a lesson for us, and we should emerge from this stronger and with valuable lessons,” the official said.
Moesi stated that the sour relationship between the BAA executive committee and the secretariat has been a challenge for the past year. “The BAA executive committee is the governing authority of athletics having been so trusted by the general assembly, this therefore implies that officers have to work under these elected office bearers. There is a lot of insubordination and political interference by staff who clearly shouldn’t be meddling in the politics of athletics. Active participation in politics by officials renders them partial in their conduct of day to day office operations,” he said.
“I want to caution those that will be elected to lead this great association to take heed of this and take stern action against such conduct.
I also encourage the mother body to reign in their officers so that they stay away from politicking as this is clearly not in their mandate and in a way this compromises and disturbs the smooth running of athletics in Botswana,” he told the meeting.
Moesi said the mandate of the executive committee is to promote the sport and it has to be supported by officials the Botswana National Sports Association (BNSC) has seconded to it. “It is not a competition between staff members and the elected office bearers but rather a team effort that should prevail.
I implore the incoming committee to engage with the BNSC to address the problem. In fact a complete reshuffle of the current staff is highly recommended,” he charged.