Table tennis term increased to four years

Kabelo Boranabi | Friday May 31, 2019 20:04

 

Speaking to Mmegi Sport, Motswagole, who was voted into office last week Friday at the table tennis’ Annual General Meeting (AGM), said they have been advised by the Botswana National Sport Commission (BNSC) to amend the constitution, which was drafted in 1994.

The document was last revised in 2005. He said one of the key changes in the new amendments is the committee’s tenure, which he said would enable the office bearers to meet their target. He argues the two-year period is too short.

“In three months, we would have laid out a new constitution. We need a constitution that will allow us to move forward in the modern era. We have long been advised to do so by the BNSC (Botswana National Sport Commission),” he said.  “In the new constitution, the office bearers’ term will increase to four years.

The current period is very short for the executive committee to meet all their targets, we need a longer period to do so.”  The draft process for the new constitution begun in 2016, but was hampered by delays.

The new constitution will also include Para table tennis for the first time. Para table tennis debuted in 2017, but was not lawfully recognised by the association.  Despite administrative improvements Motswagole decried financial constraints. He said the committee intends to introduce regional table tennis in an effort to spread the sport across as part of their grassroots.

“Developing players is very expensive, we should not take short cuts and that needs a lot of money, but unfortunately our grant was never and will never be enough for us to do all our projects.” “We want to have regional table tennis, in this way regions will have more tournaments, thus more clubs. This will help us groom more players in other regions rather than in Gaborone only. We also need to keep our players active by having regular tournaments, this will help our players to get more match practice and help our national team prepare for international tournaments, but with all this we are going to need more funds,” Motswagole said.

 The BTTA’s financial report was not presented at last week’s AGM, but Motswagole said the auditors were behind the delays.

“The delay has been with the auditors. We are waiting for the audit report. The previous committee was supposed to give the report to us in April at the start of our year, but there has been a delay with auditors. We will find a date to present the report to our affiliates,” he said.

Meanwhile, BTTA will host a national team selection tournament over the weekend for the All Africa Games scheduled for August in Morocco. The final list of the team is to be announced on Monday.