Sichone is netball boss

MATHEWS NDANDULA writes MARTHA Sichone is the newly elected President of Netball Zambia, formally known as Netball Association of Zambia (NAZ), after beating her only opponent in the tight elections held at National Sports Development Centre (NASDEC) in Lusaka. Sichone polled 12 out of 21 total votes casted while out-going president Getrude Mukuni managed to get 9 out of 21 votes. Prior to the election queries around enacting the New NAZ constitution were raised as some of the affiliates refused to adopt it saying the document was only circulated to them three days before the meeting.  However, after hours of dialogue they all agreed to amend the constitution as it was then discovered that the document was sent to all the affiliates last year in October. The new constitution approves the name of the organization as Netball Zambia. Following the developments, guest of honour at the elections Lt Colonel Francis Mwanza who is Sports Development Manager at the National Sports Council of Zambia described the elections as fair. Col. Mwanza said the elections went on well and if anyone wanted to appeal the results, he or she is free to do so in the next 14 days. “The event was almost spoiled at the beginning when issues that were not meant for public consumption started coming out just before the elections and I had to put a stop to them otherwise elections went well,” he said. “I think that people have gotten what they wanted and they are happy. I think people knew about these elections a long time ago and they had prepared for whatever the results so I don’t think it could have changed anything it’s what they wanted.” It took some minutes before going in to voting when the past president and the newly elected general secretary went into confrontations as to who and how they betrayed each other when they were on international tour of duty. The whole story was centred on the continental elections which were held in South Africa last year. According to Pritchard Ngoma who is general secretary of the netball Zambia, the past president Mrs Mukuni gave power to Zimbabwe to vote instead of a fellow Zambian which made Zambia to lose positions on continental level. It was at this time when journalists were chased out of the room and Sports Council intervened. Col. Mwanza stated that the National Sports Council of Zambia does not interfere in the running of sports federations, unless where they have a dispute that they failed to resolve internally. In her maiden speech, Sichone called for trust and unity to help advance the sport. “Voting should not separate us or make us feel inferior to the other. We are here as one and will always be there to consult from our former president who has been in office for the past eight years, to my newly elected team lets embrace each other let’s have trust in one another and let’s work within our stipulated if you are taking equal do your role as technical I will not interfere in your role,” said the new boss. Netball Zambia’s new president has called on the new executive to speak the same language if they are to improve the affairs of netball in the country. “Let us embrace everyone when we speak the same language as an executive these our counsellors who have trusted us but if we as an executive we are not going to speak the same language our counsellors are not going to trust us I urge you including myself that I will give you the full support that you need and will listen to your views our executive will be an open door executive to listen to criticism constructive of course and we are there to save you as our affiliates we can’t be in national executive without affiliates. You also can’t be there if there are no athletes so all of us are married together we are in one marriage we can’t live without you and you can’t live without the athletes so let’s work as a team,” said Sichone. And out-going Netball Association of Zambia President GetrudeMukuni has accepted the defeat saying she will not appeal the results. “I will not appeal. I have let everything to God, but you saw for yourself whatever happened minutes before voting. If anything, that is the evidence I can use if I want to file in any case but I’m not going to appeal,” said Mukuni. The Sun