While all appears rosy on the pitch for Big Bullets, behind the scenes, the club’s internal wrangles continue to get out of hand.
The People’s Team was thrown into fresh turmoil on Monday when its treasurer Noel Lipipa, who is viewed as a fierce critic by a section of the team’s leadership, announced his resignation.
Lipipa confirmed his resignation citing flouting of financial procedures as the main reason behind his decision, but Bullets chairperson Kondi Msungama said there was no grain of truth in Lipipa’s claims.
“The way the team’s finances are being run leaves a lot to be desired. There is a lot of unprofessionalism and to save my reputation, I have thought it wise to step down,” said Lipipa.
In particular, Lipipa cited the handling of the team’s account which he claimed flouts normal financial procedures.
“There have been lots of issues, but push came to shove last week when I discovered that the chairperson [Msungama] and the general secretary [Harold Fote] sidelined me in the process to change the name of our account at Nedbank as advised by the bank.
“What happened was that initially, we opened an account under the name Bullets FC and the cheque book was in my possession, but at a later stage, the bank advised us to change the name to Bullets Limited so as to be in line with the name that was registered with the Registrar of Companies and without my knowledge and consent as the person responsible for finances, the chairperson and the GS went behind my back to get another cheque book,” claimed Lipipa.
He said while he had no problems with the correction as advised by the bank, he was surprised that the club chairperson and GS formalised the process without his involvement.
“I only learnt that they collected another cheque book when a debtor [a Mr. L.C Wittika] came to me with a cheque amounting to K94 500 that had bounced. All along I did not know that they were in possession of another cheque book and that they were drawing and depositing money without my knowledge as treasurer.
“Now, I am a qualified accountant and money is not supposed to be handled this way. When I confronted both of them on the issue, they could not give me a convincing response. This is total rubbish and I do not want to be part of such mess,” he said.
Lipipa also said the other reason was that his objection to hire the club’s former coach Nsazurwimo Ramadhan for a month to work on the team’s lack of firepower was ignored.
“To me, it doesn’t make sense that we should spend K1 million on Ramadhan when we have arrears for the players in the excess of a similar amount. As treasurer, I felt we could not afford such luxury looking at our financial position,” said Lipipa.
But Msungama and Fote claimed that Lipipa was aware of all the transactions.
“For God’s sake he is one of the five signatories to this account, now how can he claim that he was not aware of such transactions? I recall that when this account was first opened, he also claimed that he was not aware, but during a meeting with the trustees, it transpired that he was actually a signatory and knew about it.
“The problem with my brother Noel is that he is always critical of anything and is a fault-finder,” said Msungama.
According to Msungama, the other account signatories apart from himself, Lipipa and Fote are first vice-chairperson Sadik Malinga and vice-treasurer Brian Ligomeka. And out of these, the principal signatories are Msungama, Lipipa and Malinga.
Msungama also dismissed Lipipa’s claims, saying they do not owe the players any money apart from last Saturday game bonus for their win over Mighty Wanderers.
“The reason we are bringing Ramadhan is that we are handicapped upfront and we need an expert to rectify that problem because at the rate we are going, we could fail to win the league title due to lack of firepower,” said Msungama.
Fote claimed that they collected another cheque book because at that time, Lipipa could not be traced.
“To begin with, it is not like we were drawing money unnecessarily and records are there for all to see. Secondly, we had to get the cheque book without the treasurer’s knowledge because he could not make himself available, we could not allow his absence to stifle the club’s operations in terms of finances. That said, he was briefed about these transactions,” said Fote.
According to the club’s constitution Article 6 (e), the treasurer shall be responsible to the board for the control and handling of money.
“He shall further be responsible to the board for keeping of the club’s accounts and shall present at every board meeting an up-to-date statement of income and expenditure,” reads part of the constitution.
Bullets board of trustees chairperson James Busile said he only learnt about Lipipa’s resignation yesterday.
“His resignation has not yet been accepted. We are planning to summon the executive committee later today [yesterday] to get to the bottom of the issue and from there, a determination will be made,” said Busile.
Lipipa’s resignation comes barely two weeks after main supporters committee chairperson Isaac Jomo Osman also threw in the towel. According to the constitution, the main supporters committee chairperson automatically becomes an executive member.
