Forget semantics, just get the BFA audit done
Mqondisi Dube | Friday September 9, 2016 14:27
The Botswana Football Association (BFA) has come under sharp focus after instituting an audit at both the association and the Botswana Premier League.
The BFA top brass appears too apologetic after initiating a process meant to examine the accounts of both bodies.
There have been technical questions over how the audit has been instituted at the BPL with BFA labouring to confirm a South African firm had been engaged.
The Botswana Institute of Chartered Accountants (BICA) immediately queried how a company from abroad could be given the task without following the mandatory steps.
At Wednesday’s BFA press briefing, the association’s second vice president, Marshlow Motlogelwa appeared to be at pains to confirm that a South African firm had been engaged.
“It’s an internal process,” he responded when asked to confirm if a South African company had been engaged, but the response drew uniform murmurs from sports journalists.
BFA president, Maclean Letshwiti had to move in swiftly to affirm that indeed a company from the neighbouring country had been asked to peruse the books of the BPL and that talks with BICA on the compliance matter were progressing. The audit will extend to the BFA.
While there appears to be excitement around minor technical glitches surrounding the manner in which the South African company was engaged, the BFA has to show ‘balls of steel’ and proceed nonchalantly.
The BFA should engage BICA and correct whatever anomaly and then proceed with the audit. The football fraternity cannot be denied the opportunity to glance into the state of accounts of the nation’s number one sport simply because of a technicality.
An audit, both of the accounts and personnel, is critical for progress.
The BFA emphasised the exercise is a forensic audit, correcting a journalist who had used the term ‘auditing’. But semantics should not, at this or any stage, be the focal point or let the association take its eyes off the ball. It’s not about the technical name of the process, that is not the matter. Accounting jargon should be the last thing on the mind. What is crucial is that an audit, in whatever form, has to be carried out as matter of urgency.
A new leadership has assumed reigns at BFA and it is normal to examine books and to scrutinise the personnel on offer. As Letshwiti said, the exercise should not be a witch-hunt but a fact-finding mission.
“It is not witch-hunting. I want to know what I am inheriting,” he said.
Again, there is nothing wrong with a sanctioned ‘professional’ witch-hunt where wrongdoing is suspected.
Letshwiti and his group can only give the exact picture after an audit, other than that most of it will be allegations or mere corridor talk. The new leadership suspects rot and have inherited an association P10 million in the red.
Only a professional audit can confirm or deny such. Again the audit, and not just individuals, will implicate wrong doers, if any.
In the absence of an audit, any action Letshwiti takes will be misconstrued as a witch-hunt or settling scores.
The findings of an audit will direct whatever action the BFA leadership takes and eliminate lingering concerns that the exercise is nothing but a fault-finding mission.
If there are no skeletons in the cupboard, the audit should not be the elephant in the room, least its opponents are seen as dripping blood.
An organisation keen to restore its credibility like the BFA has to anchor its values on accountability and good governance, and an audit is a key component in achieving these goals.
Some of the members of the current leadership were plucked from the old blood and if the audit uncovers rot and they are implicated, Letshwiti, as per promise must not hesitate to crack the whip.
Emphasis should be implementing the audit findings in order to re-ignite confidence in sponsors and re-establish football as the beautiful game once again.