Gideon Sam has been re-elected as SASCOC President for another four-year term, (2017-2020) at the Quadrennial General Meeting at Olympic House on Saturday, reports Sport24.
Sam, who was first elected President in 2008, was re-elected after contesting with Deputy President, Hajera Kajee.
In terms of the Deputy President the status quo remained unchanged for the next four years as Kajee was returned to her position. Other nominations for the Deputy Presidency position were Jace Naidoo, Muditambu Ravele and Jerry Segwaba.
The new Vice President is Barry Hendricks who came out on top against the other nominees namely: Jace Naidoo, Mimi Mthethwa, Leslie Williams, Lucas Nhlapo and Merrill King.
Also at the meeting, five Board members were elected. Of the 22 original nominations, there were four withdrawals.
The Board members who will serve for the next four years are: Mark Alexander, Merrill King, Kobus Marais, Debbie Alexander and Leslie Williams.
Mark Alexander, Kobus Marais, Merrill King and Les Williams also served on the Board for the last term of office.
Professor Mandla Mchunu oversaw the electoral process and 79 members of SASCOC accounted for a voting strength of 178.
Minister of Sports and Recreation Fikile Mbalula sent his congratulatory message to the new board. “A united SASCOC is important to develop sport in South Africa. We need to support the National teams, especially those that are not doing very well instead of bringing racism and quotas into the picture when teams are not performing well.”
“We are not implementing quotas but targets so we encourage the new board to lead all the time whether teams are doing well or not. We have to move forward in the transformation and development of sport in South Africa, Mbalula added.
“It is important that National Federations should identify the gaps in our system so that they can indicate that to Government and SASCOC and move sport further.
“We have to mainstream transformation so that it becomes a business imperative for all NFs.”
Speaking at Saturday’s QGM President of SASCOC Gideon Sam said, “After eight years of running the show, from Beijing to now, we have to change. The board will be going for a two-day workshop where they will devise a strategy and come back and instruct management of what has to happen. We have to restructure the way we do things and how we want to go about it.”
“We will have to look at what we are doing and how we have been doing it and look at a way forward. The board will deliver these tasks in March 2017 at the General Meeting and map a way forward to improve every aspect of the organisation from Marketing and Public Relations to Finance systems of the company,” he concluded.
