Peter Mazey yesterday highlighted the widespread concerns on the lack of governance by the country’s National Sports Organisations (NSO).

The Fiji National Sports Commission chairman made the comment at the 2015 National Sports Conference at Holiday Inn Suva.

“Our major concern is that NSO executives have conveniently forgotten or do not know their own constitution or the rules that have been set up by the members to govern their sporting organisations,” Mazey said.

“Over the past year, we have received complaints with regards to sports, National Sport Organisations and their executives.

“These have been verbally given, through the media, in writing; a lot came through the Prime Minister’s office and through the ministers and the ministries.”

Mazey said simple rules have not been followed by various NSOs which was very alarming.

“AGM’s have not been conducted as per the constitutions,” he said.

“Most constitutions have a time frame for AGM and we have a bad habit of not working within those time frames.

“Regular executive or committee meetings are not happening, annual financial reports have not been presented to members and quorums have not been met.

“Constitutions have been amended without following the established rules; most constitutions can only be amended at the annual general meeting.

“Executive elections have not been held as required, this is a big one and we get this from quite a few from our athletes and also concerns about the national team where the selection criteria’s are not being followed.

“Memorandum of understanding (MOU), contract of employment and athlete agreements have been put in place and then conveniently comprised.

“Funding for our athletes and our teams has not been accounted for or has been misused.

“However, with all that said we want to move ahead and stop all this, so that come this time next year we will not be discussing this.”

While the Commission is tasked with dealing with all these issues, Mazey has reminded everyone, especially the NSO executives and their management of their responsibility to their members, to their clubs, to their sport and most importantly to their athletes.

“How can we expect any of our athletes to perform and achieve their best and make us proud if we do not have good governance created and established properly in our sports organisation?

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