BOKA has P300 in bank account
Calistus Kolantsho | Tuesday January 24, 2023 06:00
The revelation was made by BOKA president, Mpho Bakwadi at the association’s Ordinary General Meeting (OGM) held in Gaborone on Saturday. He said the association is broke with no explanation of how the grant was used by the previous committee. Bakwadi revealed that when they came into office, former treasurer, Tirelo Mukokomani had stated that he resigned from his position two months before the executive committee was removed from office. Mukokomani informed the interim that he handed over the books to the former president, Tshepho Bathai. Presenting the financial report, BOKA treasurer, Kemmonye Seletamotse said she was unable to compile a comprehensive financial report because of lack of information. “The little information that I have is from the Botswana National Sport Commission (BNSC) accounts department. The rest of the information is with the previous committee. I was informed that the financial report is with the audit firm but they have declined to assist me with the report,” she said.
Seletamotse told the OGM that BOKA grant stood at P225,000 for the 2022-2023 financial year. She said the BNSC took back some of the money because they had assisted in paying for the construction of the BOKA hall. She said there was another debit in the account but there are no records to indicate what the funds were used for. Furthermore, Bakwadi informed the affiliates that there were some members of the previous committee who refused to cooperate during the handing over. He said Sam Dire and Karabo Samuel have been suspended while investigations are ongoing against former vice president-technical, David Hubona. Samuel and Dire are suspended on allegations of corruption. “The BOKA inventory indicated that we had 11 mats and four of them are with Christopher Ponatshego and Otto Tafa. We have asked Tafa and Ponatshego to return the mats but they have not responded. The deadline was Friday,” he said. Bakwadi said the association had six television sets and two were returned by Bose Caiphus and investigations have revealed that the missing four are with Bathai.
There were 15 tablets, Caiphus has returned seven and Bathai has knowledge of the missing eight. Bakwadi said they discovered that Karate No-Michi Botswana had not paid their annual affiliation fees for 2022-2023. “The Federation was also accused of branding and using medals acquired through the BOKA grant for two non-BOKA events being the Lobatse Sport Festival and a club event. This culminated in the suspension of Karate No-Michi pending further investigation. The recommendation of my committee is the expulsion of Karate No-Michi,” he said. However, Lere Basupang of JKA Botswana said it will be disappointing if Karate No-Michi was expelled. “Our role is to develop karate and if we expel No-Michi what about the students? Are we going to destroy that style and take its students? This is exactly what happened to Andrew Dobolo, he was expelled, his style and students disappeared. We should not allow that to happen again,” she argued. Basupang said the person who BOKA is after is Bathai not his style or students and the focus should be on him. After a long debate, the affiliates agreed that No-Michi should be pardoned but they should be reminded to put their house in order.