COSBOTS AGM postponed
Spira Tlhankane | Tuesday July 25, 2017 18:00
Independent organisation, Botswana Council of Non-Governmental Organisations (BOCONGO) will handle the electoral process to be decided by a show of hands. The 1,300 members of COSBOTS who are eligible to vote will either cast their vote in person or by proxy.
Briefing the media yesterday, current COSBOTS board chairperson, Prince Monna said the main reason they postponed the elections was to allow BOCONGO to conduct credible, transparent and fair elections for the vacancies that are available on the board. He said that there only four vacancies are available and two of those are for the musicians section.
Monna added that BOCONGO has advised them that in order to deliver on their mandate they will need more time and were not ready last weekend. “We received a number of proxy forms, which the board has had to invalidate due to certain irregularities. We issued one form of proxy but to our shock, we received 60 proxies,” he said.
Monna said BOCONGO was appointed in May but due to some mistake in the office, the latter were not able to receive the mandate in time. “We will now tighten control over delivering elections,” he said. COSBOTS legal expert, Osego Garebamono said they would also have time to teach members about proxies.
“We will teach them how to vote properly, everyone should sign their proxies,” he said. He said even though the royalties’ collection organisation has many members, BOCONGO would find a way to conduct credible show of hands election.
Besides the elections, Monna said they are awaiting the report from Companies and Intellectual Property Authority (CIPA) that was investigated by an independent forensic auditor, Masitara Forensic Practice.
He said the organisation has been hit with corruption and maladministration allegations therefore it is better for the report to come out before the AGM. Despite being implicated in the investigation, some of the previous board members like Solo B Monyame have since decided to continue with his campaign. Monyame will contest against team Real Change of Tomeletso Sereetsi and team Bagaka of Alfredo Mos.