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Home / Disability Sport Namibia AGM marred by politics ... power tussle continues
Disability Sport Namibia AGM marred by politics ... power tussle continues
2017-09-27Staff Report 2 Otniel Hembapu Windhoek-A nasty war of words is brewing ahead of Disability Sport Namibia (DSN)’s planned annual general meeting (AGM) scheduled for September 30, with some of the organization’s affiliates banned from attending the meeting, while others have questioned the legality of the envisaged gathering. With Special Olympics Namibia (SON), which represents athletes with intellectual disability, already in shambles following the recent suspension of its licence by the mother-body Special Olympics International (SOI), it appears the fight for top positions within the local disability sports fraternity continues unimpeded. DSN serves as the mother-body to the Namibia Paralympics Committee (NPC), Namibian Deaf Sports Federation (NDSF) and SON. Disability Sport Namibia has been without any leadership following the resignation of its long-serving president Charles Nyambe, who vacated the hot seat in March this year. In a recent communiqué seen by New Era Sport between DSN and its three affiliates, the disability sport presiding body extended an invitation to its three affiliates to attend DSN’s upcoming AGM set for this coming Saturday, where it also advised the affiliates to submit three names each of members that will represent them at the congress. In another follow-up letter, also in possession of New Era Sport, authored by Namibian Para-swimmer Gideon Nasilowski, DSN informed SON board members Betty Aluteni, Deon Namiseb and Peter Wilson not to attend the AGM and that their positions on the DSN board would remain vacant until they are “reinstated” by SOI and all issues with SOI are fully resolved. But the tricky part is that Nasilowski, who strangely authored the communiqué in his ordinary capacity as he is not an interim president nor a secretary-general, failed to clarify as to how DSN arrived at the conclusion of barring Aluteni, Namiseb and Wilson from attending the AGM. As it stands, despite SOI’s decision to revoke SON’s licence due to alleged financial and administrative irregularities, Aluteni, Namiseb and Wilson are technically full members of SON as the issue with SOI is still pending and none of the three was found guilty of any wrongdoings. In fact, according to various documents, SOI had first dismantled the entire SON board but later backtracked on its decision and fully reinstated the board members into their respective positions, and then later asked them (the SON board members) to voluntarily resign – something none of the three members (Aluteni, Namiseb and Wilson) have done to date. Meaning, since Aluteni, Namiseb and Wilson were fully reinstated at one point and never voluntarily resigned as requested by SOI, as they were not declared guilty of any wrongdoings to warrant their removal, they legally and technically remain valid SON board members and should thus be eligible to attend Saturday’s AGM. What puzzles the mind is the hastiness of DSN in wanting to arrange an AGM this weekend while one of its affiliates SON is in shambles and going through tribulations with its international mother-body, because one would have expected DSN along with the Namibia Sports Commission (NSC) to play a mediatory role as opposed to bulldozing and bypassing its affiliates to host an AGM. It now remains to be seen whether the NSC and the line ministry would allow the DSN’s planned AGM to go ahead in the midst of a serious SON crisis, or it will first deal with the grave SON licence issue at hand and then allow the DSN AGM to go ahead later, once the storm is calm. 2017-09-27Staff Report 2
