Mujuru speaks on future plans
NEWLY-ELECTED Basketball Union of Zimbabwe president Joe Mujuru has set his eyes on taking the development of the sport to all the country’s 10 provinces to ensure they have vibrant structures.
Mujuru takes over from Addison Chiware, who has been at the helm of BUZ for the past decade after winning Saturday’s elections held in Kwekwe.
Under Chiware BUZ has largely remained stagnant with very little to shout about and now attention will be on Mujuru to steer the ship to new heights.
Prior to becoming president he was the secretary-general for the last four years.
Mujuru accumulated 11 votes to beat veteran administrator and Cameo Sigauke director Roderick Takawira, who was also vying to lead the basketball mother body and got one vote.
Mujuru said although provinces such as Harare and Bulawayo have active structures, BUZ needs to take it to the next level by ensuring all provinces are operating at the same level.
“Our business as BUZ is to see to it that we have strong national teams in place. Development has got to spread, I know Harare is doing a good job, Bulawayo is doing a good job, Midlands and Manicaland are doing a good job.
“We need to now spread those development programmes seriously, as serious as they are in Harare and Bulawayo, to be that serious in Matabeleland North and Mashonaland East, that’s as far as development is concerned.
“So that is development of the coaches which in turn becomes our development of players. The development of referees and umpires also, which becomes the development of the players as well,” said Mujuru.
The other members of the executive are secretary-general Charmaine Chamboko, president technical commission Sikhumbuzo Ndlovu, Ignatius Yesaya competitions, Opportunity Moyo women and youth and Taurai Chitsinde athletes’ commission.
The new leadership is expected to meet for the first time before the end of this week after which they will hold a strategic planning workshop as the president said they need to engage all stakeholders to map the way forward.
“What is needed for us to go to the next level have got to come from the members themselves. So what we need to do as a matter of urgency is perhaps soon after the holidays organise a strategic planning workshop which is going to involve all our stakeholders.
“They know the limitations that we are having, they know where we want to go as a fraternity and that’s the direction that we now set our targets and our goals for the next four years.
“There is also issues of transparency which are very important and need to be discussed. Transparency should not start and end with financial transparency. There should be transparency in the way we do business generally, our appointments processes . . . and there must be accountability in all the actions we do” added Mujuru.
He is also looking at proposing to add two more members to the board in the form of a treasurer and communications person.
Currently the board is made up of six people with the secretary-general performing the duties of a treasurer and handling the communication side as well which he noted is overwhelming.
The Sports Commission, during their Sport Governance conference in Harare recently, emphasised the need to appoint people with proper qualifications for positions such as the treasurer’s instead of having them being selected through elections
The newly-elected BUZ president said that’s the path they would want to take if the proposal is approved.
Mujuru has been involved in basketball since 2006 as the Bulawayo Basketball Association committee member and he rose through the ranks to become BUZ secretary-general from 2013 until last Saturday when he took over the presidency.