BFA stands accused
Having completed the submission, a voter’s roll was shared by the association to the region a week later and the first signs of irregularities were noted.
“Firstly, they were given a voters roll which was not signed, secondly, some teams which declined to submit names of their electorates were found to have representatives in the voters roll; but that was accepted as they were previously requested to send. Lastly, upon receiving the voters roll, there were queries that it had names of electorates that were not submitted, wrong identity numbers, wrong names and in some instances, names of people who were no longer in the structures,” a close informant to the developments shared. Reliable information gathered by this publication is that the association received two ( 2) voters rolls, one from the KRFA office and the other one from some individuals but the association bizarrely accepted and approved the latter’s voters’ roll.
“They ( KRFA) were told that they submitted their voters’ roll late, and that is why a voters’ roll from some individuals was accepted, but remember the regional leaders were given an extension from which they met the deadline so it was just a chaotic situation,” the source told BG Sport. The BFA electoral committee chairman, Moemedi Letina was reportedly surprised ahead of the elections by the matter and he told KRFA officials that he was not aware of those developments. After conducting their investigations, Letina and his committee took a bold decision to suspend the elective congress after they admitted that indeed there were irregularities on the voters’ roll. “Please note that Kweneng Regional Football Association ( KRFA) elections scheduled for the 16th October 2022 have since been postponed to the 22nd October 2022. The postponement was ordered after the Electoral Committee ( EC) acceded to address the complaints raised and insisted on by the KRFA Chairperson around the voters’ roll, amongst others. In the spirit of fairness, the EC therefore decided that it is only fair and just that the scheduled elections be postponed to the 22nd October 2022, for the purposes of investigating and/ or addressing the complaints raised by the KRFA Chairperson,” a BFA press statement responding to the developments stated.
The chaotic incident has also been identified by some close observers to local football administration as a result of the mother- body’s sudden interest to influence candidates to assume leadership roles at regional level, leading to the BFA 2024 elections.
“Kweneng region needs Raditloko and Mafuta to grow football, but things are the way they are because now we’ve moved to main stream football politics. So now it is also a case of whether the football leadership wants you or not, so they will want to influence and have their people occupying regional office and this is what will divide a lot of people,” one of the local football administrators highlighted. “Remember Lekgotla was seen as a close ally to Tebogo Sebego, and since Maclean Letshwiti became the BFA president, Lekgotla has received at least three ( 3) warning letters with the latest received less than two months ago. At this rate, I will not be surprised if he is suspended ahead of the elections and that will leave Mafuta unchallenged,” the informant added.