Former BNFYL yet to hand over office
Tsaone Basimanebotlhe | Thursday April 6, 2017 16:08
The acting BNFYL president Velem Heii confirmed that they have taken the matter to their party central committee.
“We have been funding some youth league activities from our pockets with the help of some members. The previous committee has not handed anything to us and as the new committee we don’t know what the problem could be.
As the BNFYL we are concerned that the central committee is taking long to resolve the matter,” Heii said.
He said they are failing to execute programmes of their action plan because of lack of funds.
He continued; “The money for Mahalapye congress should be accounted for. The members also want to know the reasons why the previous committee is failing to hand over’.
The BNF constitution prescribes that the hand over from previous committee to new one should be done the following day or immediately after the results are announced. The mother body committee seems to be reluctant to resolve the matter in the youth league, which was voted into the office in May 26.
BNF has a poor culture of committees failing to hand over when they are voted out of office, as the new central committee is also struggling with the previous committee to do proper hand over to the treasurer. The two issues are expected to be top of the agenda at the next central committee meeting scheduled for next month, after the secretary general failed to act on the youth concerns.
The previous committee is expected to account for money paid by delegates at the congress, which had attracted over 700 members. This has brought tension amongst the youth members in the party.
Former BNFYL president Kemmonye Makatane also expressed concern at the delay in finding a solution to the problem.
“We have not been able to reach out to former members due to commitments. Members of the committee don’t handle party finances and therefore if it can happen for handover to take place that would be figures not money. The new committee can go on with their activities as they had already started doing,” Makatane said.
However, BNF spokesperson Justin Hunyepa said the issue of hand over of BNFYL is handled by the party central committee and they hope that it would be resolved soon.
“I cannot comment on the two issues, BNFYL and central committee treasurer hand over. The two issues are internal and I hope they would be on the agenda on our central committee meeting,” he said.