By: Ludorf Iyambo
Youth and sports minister Agnes Tjongarero says she fired the entire Sports commission board due to “deliberate” insubordination and ignoring the appointing authority.
Tjongarero relieved the entire board of the commission of their duties with immediate effect on Tuesday.
Joel Matheus, who was the board chairperson, was fired along with members Erica Beukes, Tomas Mbeeli, Alna Similo, Linda Chicalu, Marius Johannes, Karen Mubonenwa and Nicklause Nghumono.
Tjongarelo told The Villager that the board members in charge of sports administrators refused to adhere to what she was telling them.
The bone of contention was the renewal of the sports commission’s chief administrator’s (Freddy Mwiya) contract, which she disagreed with.
“The board decided they are not going along with what I am saying, so I decided I am not going along with what they are saying. Sports things must go on. We cannot have a stalemate forever. As I’m talking to you, there is a vacuum at the sports commission. There’s no sports administrator for two months under the watchful eye of this board, just because the contract of chief administrator ended in March,” said Tjongarero.
Tjongarelo says that Mwiya’s contract ended in March. According to her, the board had recommended that the contract be renewed, which refused and said the position should be advertised. Tjongarero says that she wants the position to be taken up by eligible young Namibians, especially those who finished sports admin, to take up the job.
“The commission did not want this. They only want this person; they don’t want any other youth or other people to come in. I have my reasons for saying let’s advertise it,” she claimed.
She added that “what transpired is that, at the end of the day, we don’t understand each other properly on one point, and that’s why we have to part away.”
According to Tjongarero, the board members did not make any efforts during the period to achieve whatever they wanted to accomplish with the position of chief administrator.
She added that the board members did not do anything to remedy the situation.
“Remember it is for two months. There is no leadership there. I cannot allow that. Things must move on, whether Tjongarero is there or she is not there. This is an indication to me that they don’t care about the sport, and they don’t care with the federation,” she said.
Quizzed on when the Premier League is expected to return, she said that the football association is fighting each other and using the money from FIFA for other things.
“I cannot tell you when but I’m praying and hopeful that with this Normalisation Committee now, we will resolve all these things. When CAF visited my office, I requested them to look at the statutes of the NFA. The NFA has too many loopholes that are excluding some people to come into the positions,” she stated.
The minister said the Premier League could have started long ago if Namibia Broadcasting Cooperation (NBC) could have agreed to the broadcasting rights with the people who wanted to run the professional league.
Namibia has been without a premier league for four years now after the NFA, in 2019, announced that NFA Normalisation Committee had suspended the Namibia Premier League (NPL) for bringing football into disrepute.
The suspension comes following the NPL’s refusal to promote Orlando Pirates and Civics to the Premier League after the NC had earlier requested them to do so in terms of ‘sporting merit.
