DISAPPOINTING CHAOS AT ATHLETICS BODY AGM
CENTRAL Gauteng Athletics (CGA) took the saying ‘you can’t organise a piss-up in a brewery’ to new heights yesterday when they failed to elect their new leadership in an Annual General Meeting (AGM) that was chaotic from the onset.
Other than the outgoing president’s and the financial reports, the council strangely agreed that the rest of the other reports should not be tabled to allow for a swift election process. So it was that none of the commissions of the biggest provincial federation of Athletics South Africa (ASA) were tabled.
But if the idea was to ensure that delegates didn’t spend the entire day at the Germiston Stadium and thus vote in the new board without the usual time-wasting as per the suggestion of the outgoing president James Moloi who now occupies the same position at ASA, it backfired badly.
No less than three hours were wasted in a chaotic voting process that ended up with ASA vice-president Shireen Noble calling CGA to order like a primary school teacher does her pupils before it was decided that the elections be postponed for three weeks as per the constitution.
“It’s very unfortunate that (ASA) we have to be here and look at this,” she barked. “It’s embarrassing that there’s no structure and that everyone is talking at the same time. We won’t let this lack of respect go on. We need to know what the feeling of the council is with regards to this (election). Do we continue or not?”
A majority decision was taken to halt proceedings and have the elections after 21 days although there were some clubs opposed to the move.
One sensed though that the whole process was doomed from the start when it was decided that only one club member would vote despite CGA having informed members to send two delegates to the AGM.
The voting process was chaotic, with ballot papers handed out to clubs by no less than four stewards who appeared unaware what the other was doing and as such the risk of people receiving more than one ballot was rife.
It was not surprising then that following the initial voting process for the presidency, contested by five candidates in Boyce Joko, Steven Khanyile, Thokozani Mazibuko, Queen Mofokeng and Karabo Mabilo, the election convener announced there was a discrepancy with the club votes.
Naturally, conspiracies started flying about, with some claiming that there were already ballots in the boxes even before the voting started although the chief election officer had showed the gathering the boxes beforehand.
Others suggested that the inconsistency is a ploy made up because the ‘one they want as president didn’t win’, without really explaining who that ‘they’ is.
It was just a mess. And it was not surprising that two clubs raised a suggestion that the event be declared null and void only to be voted down by some who felt they’d spent a lot of time at the event already and that they won’t have time in future to return for the AGM.
This was before the ASA vice-president stood up to call the entire CGA council to order and get them to decide whether they want to continue with the AGM.
While Moloi, the ASA president who was vacating his CGA post yesterday, has said he leaves the federation in a good space, what transpired at the AGM yesterday tells a completely different story.
And there can be no denying that the new leadership board that will be voted in after 21 days has a lot of work to do if they are to see CGA taking its rightful place as the country’s top athletics federation.
How does an institution that can’t run a basic election event and AGM expect to run the sport properly, produce top athletes and attract major sponsorships?