The SGM voted out the Bakwadi-led committee through a motion of no confidence passed by Shito-Ryu Shukokai and seconded by Kofukan. Bakwadi told SportMonitor that the meeting was illegal and any decision taken there is not recognised. “Federations are clear in the letters that they wrote pulling out of the petition. Nobody can make decisions as individuals on behalf of federations. I do not accept the outcome of the SGM. Those people are just wasting their time claiming to be the BOKA interim committee. It was just a group of friends having a conversation, nothing discussed there is binding,” Bakwadi lashed out.
The meeting was attended by five disgruntled federations who have been dealt a bad card by the BOKA leadership. Ahead of the SGM, BOKA warned that federations that will attend the SGM will face suspension or even expulsion because the gathering was illegal and decisions taken at the meeting are not recognised. The meeting was attended by five federations being Kofukan, Goju-Kai, Karate Nomichi, Shito-Ryu Shukokai Union and Ryushin-Kan. The meeting started off by discussing issues that the federations had raised in the petition that they had submitted to the BOKA office in January. Some of the issues in the petition included violation of the constitution, lack of financial transparency, non compliance with constitutional procedure, unlawful appointments, arbitrary termination of members and non implementation of the Annual General Meeting (AGM). Debating the petition, Ookeditse Malesu (Shukokai) said the Botswana National Sport Commission (BNSC) is clear that a treasurer appointed by national sport associations (NSAs) must be qualified and BICA accredited, but that was not the case with the BOKA treasurer. “We cannot expect our sport to grow when people are allowed to break the law just because they are favoured by the system,” he said. Veronica Chube (Kofukan) said the BNSC should have stopped funding BOKA because they did not follow the requirements of a treasurer. The SGM adopted that points raised in the petition were enough for a motion of no confidence to be passed against the Bakwadi-led committee.
The SGM voted in an interim executive committee with Keorapetse Mogopodi from Shukokai as president. The interim committee has been instructed to prepare for an elective AGM in June. Speaking to SportMonitor, Mogopodi said he is ready for his new role. “We want to bring stability to the BOKA office. We know that there will be resistance from the previous board members. We are going to submit the new board to the BNSC and the BOKA previous leadership informing them of the leadership changes. We are hopeful that the previous president, Bakwadi, will acknowledge us because what happened has happened, but it is up to him,” he said. When asked what they have been doing when BOKA was going through tough times, Mogopodi said they tried to advise the leadership but the advice was ignored. He said the painful thing is that it is the athletes who suffer.
Mogopodi said infightings within should not be happening especially between seniors. “There were national team selections that happened on Saturday in Francistown and Gaborone. We cannot nullify the results because that will cause problems for us. We will have a meeting with all chief instructors so that we decide what happens moving forward because many athletes missed the selections because their federations were suspended. We want quality in the national teams,” Mogopodi said. Other members of the interim committee: Vice president-technical: Moemedi Mpebe (Karate Nomichi), vice president-administration: Veronica Chube (Kofukan), secretary-general: Boitumelo Koone (Kofukan), vice secretary-general: Etalang Serumola (Ryushin-Kan), treasurer: Moses Hirschfeldt (Karate Nomichi) and PRO: Moses Tubego (Ryushin-Kan).
