BOMU annual meet to go ahead
Goitsemodimo Kaelo | Friday August 14, 2020 12:43
BOMU’s interim vice president, Phemelo ‘Fresh Les’ Lesokwane said the event, which is scheduled for tomorrow (Saturday 15, 2020), will take place in Gaborone at Thapong Visual Arts Centre from 8am.
The AGM follows a series of attempts by the Interim Committee assigned by the Advisory and Arbitration Council to resuscitate BOMU and allow members to elect their own committee.
“We are going on with the AGM. Remember that the lockdown ends on Thursday and we are hopefully that on Friday restrictions on movements would be lifted.
The thing is we just have to follow protocols. We have invited a limited number of people not exceeding the required number and have also engaged health and safety people,” Lesokwane explained in an interview.
Lesokwane added while there is uncertainty as to whether the lockdown would be extended or not due to a surge in new cases, they have not a made a decision to postpone the AGM. “We will only get to postpone in the event that the lockdown is extended.
We don’t want those who are contesting to take us to court that we changed dates before the lockdown was extended.
We want to avoid unnecessary issues as we look to resuscitate BOMU,” he told Arts & Culture.
This AGM is the first since the one held in 2017, which was marred by controversy and resulted in the suspension of the then elected committee.
Lesokwane said their assignment was to rebuild the leadership’s executive committee in all 10 districts and organise BOMU AGM where a substantive executive committee shall be elected to take over from the interim one.
The core issues at the AGM will be centred around the resuscitation of the union with focus on reviewing the BOMU constitution to make it inclusive of all of artists in the country, issues of artists’ welfare as well as growing the organisation to make it an attractive entity that is able to generate its own revenue.
Lesokwane said they have roped in Botswana Federation of Trade Unions to conduct the elections while stakeholders such as Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development and COSBOTS will come in as election observers.