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Ellina Mhlanga Sports Reporter

THE Sports and Recreation Commission have said they will be releasing a statement on the next steps they will be taking after the Zimbabwe Netball Association responded to concerns raised by a group of netball stakeholders.

The SRC wrote to ZINA to respond to the petition.

And, yesterday, SRC corporate communications officer Tirivashe Nheweyembwa said they had received the national association’s response.

“With netball, what we did is we wrote to them to submit their report and they did,’’ he said.

“They have responded and we are now studying their response. By Friday, end of day, we will make known our next course of action.

“We should be releasing a statement to say what is the next course of action that we are taking.

“What we did is we wrote to ZINA, attached that petition and asked them to respond based on the petition.’’

Some of the issues raised the stakeholders include allegations the national association has several different constitutions, lack of transparency and accountability.

“We are a group of netball representatives who wish to register our reservations in the governance of netball in Zimbabwe by the Zimbabwe Netball Association  (ZINA).

“Our observations are as follows:

“There are several different constitutions we are aware of but do not have information on which one is in operation.

“Teams have stopped affiliation to ZINA due to lack of transparency. This has seen teams moving from the Super League to an Amateur League.

“Lack of sponsorship since sponsors and donors do not have faith in how their finances are used.

“According to the ZINA constitution, which we believe is the one registered with SRC, Article 17, voting -17.4 reads, in the event of a tie, the chairman shall have a casting vote.

“The 2017 election was manipulated, on the position of vice president, violating the 17.4 section quoted above.’’

ZINA president Leticia Chipandu said they had responded to the petition but added that the issues raised were non-existent.

“We got the anonymous petition from a group of stakeholders and this group of stakeholders talk like they are from the outside.

“We responded and the funny thing is that there is no way SRC would give us certificates or licences of operation if we were not compliant because they are just given to national associations that are compliant,” said Chipandu.