Mmegi

Athletics' woes persist as meeting adjourned

Athletics  AGM
Athletics AGM

The Botswana Athletics Association (BAA) executive committee finds itself still in the woods after the weekend's Annual General Meeting (AGM) was adjourned.

The meeting is expected to be held within 21 days. The BAA vice president-administration, Oabona Theetso said the meeting was discontinued following advice from their legal advisor, Tiroyaone Sedimo. "The advisor said the meeting could not continue when the constitution that was used to guide the meeting was being questioned. If the meeting had continued, everything discussed would have been nullified hence the need to adjourn and seek clarity," he said. No new date has been set for the meeting. The meeting came against a backdrop of tensions between the BAA and its affiliates amidst calls for a vote of no confidence on the committee.

In February, the Francistown Athletics Club wrote a letter to the BAA that was signed by 16 affiliates, where they expressed dissatisfaction with the manner in which the BAA committee was operating. “The BAA constitution was approved and validated by the Registrar of Societies before approval by the general assembly. Amendments to the constitution shall be approved if they have support of the two-thirds majority of the voting members present at the general assembly. The new constitution bears the stamp from the Department of Civil and National Registration Societies dated December 4, 2024. All this was done without the approval of the General Assembly,” the letter reads. The club demanded that the constitution should be recalled from the Registrar of Societies and lawful procedure should be followed with immediate effect. The letter went on to caution the BAA board not to operate with a constitution that has not been approved by the affiliates, and that they should resort back to the 2016 constitution, which is the only one that the affiliates deem legally in place.

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