By FELIX MALUNGA –

KABWE Golf Club members have petitioned their executive committee to convene a special annual general meeting to determine the suitability of the current team running the affairs of the club.
In a petition addressed to the club secretary Cosmas Mufaya, the 23 members are demanding that a special council meeting should be convened to address the alleged glaring abrogation of the constitution in the manner the club led by captain Kamal Desai is being run.
The members accused the executive for allegedly circumventing the constitution by allowing invalid nominations for election to the committee contrary to the provisions of the club statutes.
“All the nominations were invalid and the annual general meeting should have put in place an interim committee to run the affairs of the club until fresh elections but the committee chose to mislead the meeting to go ahead. This action renders the whole process invalid,” read part of the petition.
The members said they were saddened with the action by the executive to fill up positions of honorary secretary and treasurer with people who were not ordinary members at the time of appointment, claiming that such manoeuvres were injuring the tenets of good governance at the club.
Another concern raised by the 23 members is that Kabwe club has continued to operate without trustees, a president and vice-president, which are important positions in the good governance of the club, is a recipe for anarchy.
The members also alleged that the captain irregularly contracted loans on behalf of the club last year without approval of the voting members and that there has been no efforts by the executive to obtain title deeds for the golf club despite some remarkable progress made by the previous committee.
Golf club workers are also said to have gone four months without being paid their salaries and the captain has allegedly been exhibiting high levels of disrespect to the members, an issue which has negatively impacted on Kabwe in terms of patronage and membership recruitment.
The petitioners claimed membership at the club had drastically reduced in the past year and that because of the captain’s alleged confrontational nature, several sponsors had pulled out from supporting Kabwe and that even junior golf development programmes have declined.