Court case was unnecessary - interim BOMU chair
Goitsemodimo Kaelo | Friday February 1, 2019 14:10
A group of disgruntled BOMU members, amongst them renowned music promoter Gilbert ‘PP Wa Pimp’ Seagile and some artistes had taken BOMU interim committee led by Moshaga to court to interdict the awards ceremony last Friday.
They argued that the interim committee had not acted on its mandate and over-stepped its territory as it was already preparing for BOMU Awards without consulting artistes.
They said BOMU should not hold any activities before election of a new committee in July. The High Court ruled in their favour.
Now, Moshaga has said BOMU has many problems, which would take time to correct if the tension at the Union continues.
“I was appointed together with others by the Advisory Council to rebuild BOMU, but it seems the process is going to take a lot of time if we keep frustrating it.
The court case was unnecessary and to some extent very unprofessional. We are acting on behalf of other artistes who live through the arts,” he said. Moshaga stated that the people are taking advantage of the gaps in the BOMU constitution while his committee is engaged to fix those. He said BOMU has had all sorts of troubles ranging from financial, constitutional and leadership dating over 10 years ago that need to be addressed. “We all want the same thing for BOMU, but if we keep fighting, we will not go anywhere near achieving that. People are using the loopholes in the constitution, which is unnecessary. BOMU has very complex problems and we should look at long term strategies to get BOMU out of this mess,” he added.
He said they should be reconciliation at the end of the day between the two factions. Moshaga could not say whether they will have the awards ceremony this year or not.
However, he stated that necessary consultations with all relevant stakeholders continue. He said that there is need to form district chapters before the election of new committee and work towards making peace with those who took the Union to court.
On his part, Seagile said that there could not have been any court case had the interim committee listened to their grievances.
“Issue of reconciliation was what we proposed in the first place.
We had written them a letter because we couldn’t agree on some issues. We even made them a letter of demand of two days and they never replied.
They lost at the Court of Appeal but as he says, this all in the past. We should move forward and resolve these issues peacefully for the benefit of the musicians. We also want peace,” said Seagile. The Union is currently running through an interim committee since August 2018 after the Council of Arbitration dissolved the then committee, which was elected in 2017, last year.