Clement Mukwasi Special Correspondent
IT  has come to my attention that there are some online and social media reports that are being spread around by some people to the effect that I am either a mole in the Sports and Recreation Commission board.

And a captured board member (of) the president of ZIFA, Philip Chiyangwa.

I would like to state, categorically from the onset, that I am not a captured member of the board nor am I a mole for anyone.

It is very unfortunate that some people find it very easy to sit somewhere in their little corners and write things that soil the reputation of others in instances where they do not have an iota of evidence to back their claims.

Zimbabweans know that I am a board member of the SRC, a body that was appointed by a government minister’s office after having satisfied the appointing authority that I have the capacity to serve on the board given my background.

I am a former senior public prosecutor, lawyer by profession, and a former police officer of repute who discharged his duties diligently and without prejudice to anyone.

My grounding in law taught me to observe principles of justice and fairness in any matter of a legal nature.

I am a person who has had extensive government experience which teaches and demands that I stick to the principles of fairness and I will not, by any chance, throw those important values away because there are people who think I should make them happy by giving judgments that are at variance with the dictates of fairness and justice.

On the SRC board, I have discharged my duties in line with the statutory provisions of the SRC Act, enjoining those with the principles of justice that I have alluded to above.

I reiterate, I will not be swayed by any amount of pressure from anywhere.

I took an oath of office to serve diligently and I will respect that oath.

With specific reference to the ZIFA issue that has become the source of my demonisation in the public media by individuals, whose existence in football circles left the nation with wounds that will take time to heal, I will explain that whatever advice I gave to the board was advice based on those tenets of fairness and justice.

It has to be made clear that the SRC board, in its decisions and activities, is not guided by what an individual Commissioner or employee of the Commission wants or feels.

There are rules that govern what the Commission does.

It is also not about making anyone happy.

Neither does the Commission look at the social standing of the accused person.

The Commission respects the law and values evidence presented before it which helps it arrive at a decision on how to proceed in any given matter.

In any event, anyone pushing any Commissioner, or me in particular, into giving them a ruling in any particular matter that is at variance with the above-mentioned tenets of the law, fairness, and justice will be interfering with the discharge of my duties as enshrined in the governing legislation, the Sports and Recreation Act of Zimbabwe.

This, on its own, borders on corruption, malice, and unreasonableness, which I am not prepared to be part and parcel of.

Let me state that it is key and crucial for lay people, who have no understanding and knowledge of the law, to keep themselves away from any tribunal let alone passing comments and analysis of any matters legal.

This applies especially to those that have acted against national interest in matters relating to our beloved sport of football.

Such characters cannot be arbiters of fairness, justice, and the law — not in a thousand years.

We have journalistic gypsies and sports lunates in our midst that we should never tolerate no matter how they want to make themselves our Messiahs as a community of sports people.

I want to state that I shall be contacting fellow legal minds to see what course of action can be taken in the face of such unwarranted attack on my person.

More so, I am being attacked by someone who fails to even provide a shred of evidence to back his claim.

That cannot be let to go unchallenged and unmitigated.

We appreciate there is a freedom of expression as enshrined in the Constitution.

But world practice acknowledges that press and media freedom that you bask in the glory of should not them impede on the rights and freedoms of others.

Respectable journalists do not just publish anything on any platform without giving the person they report about any right to reply.

That is a cardinal sin in journalism and I am sure the person who accuses me of this cocktail of sins in the discharge of my duties knows better.

Mukwasi is responding to some vicious online attacks directed at him from blogger and Harare City FC official Hope Chizuzu

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