The club’s Information Officer, Haji Manara, said the meeting is part of the resolutions of the general meeting held on July 31, 2016 that sought to bring reforms in the club. During the meeting, Simba leadership endorsed a move to change ownership structure, which would eventually allow a sale of controlling shares of the club to private investors.
The decision was reached during a consultative meeting between the club’s executive committee and businessman Mohamed Dewji, who recently tabled his 20bn/- take over bid of the club. Dewji, alias ‘MO’ wanted to own 51 per cent of the club shares, which will make him majority shareholder, while the remaining 49 per cent of the stakes will be owned by other club members.
The executive committee had endorsed shareholding structure, which came hardly three weeks after Simba members endorsed managerial restructuring of the club. Manara said the two sides agreed to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for that effect, although, no time frame was given for the agreement to be implemented.
Recently, Simba Secretary General, Patrick Kahemele said that the club’s executive committee under President Evance Aveva felt it was wise to give Dewji a special privilege to express the kind of investments he wants to make at the club.
The meeting will go ahead after a Dar es Salaam court dismissed application by some club members to seek an injunction against the meeting. A week ago, club’s Council of Trustees emerged and announced to block the planned emergency general meeting.
The trustees said they will not allow the meeting to go on as planned, until the leadership completes the required procedures, including verification of all club members countrywide. Apart from that, the Trustees have also requested the Dar es Salaam Regional Commissioner (RC), Paul Makonda, to intervene and stop the emergency general meeting.
Speaking on behalf of others, Hamisi Kilomoni also requested the intervention of the Ministry of Information, Culture, Arts and Sports through the National Sports Council (NSC), so as to avoid fracas, which they say might emerge within the Msimbazi Street club, if the leadership endorse what they termed as ‘illegal’ change of constitution.
“We (trustees) have been requested by some members, who are against the club planned transition to intervene because a section of club members believe that such changes might bring about hatred and breach of peace and tranquility among the members,” Kilomoni said.
The council formed by Kilomoni, Abdulwahab Abas, Ally Sykes (the late) and Ramesh Patel, demanded the leadership to adjourn the meeting, which is aimed at amending the club’s constitution and change model of operation by introducing the shares system. The new system will allow the club to float part of its shares to the public.
However, the move is contested by a section of club members, who Kilomoni said they had written to the trustees in protest and copied their letter to President John Magufuli, Registrar of Sports Associations and Clubs and to the Secretary General of the National Sports Council (NSC). Kilomoni further argued that the planned meeting will be staged as a mere formality because he said the leadership has already agreed everything in principle with a Dar es Salaam tycoon, who wants to own majority shares of the club.
“Everything about the meeting will be a mere formality ... we have reliable information that the leadership has already reached an agreement with Mohammed Enterprises to change model of operation into shareholdings, hence members will change nothing during the meeting,” he said.
Kilomoni demand the leadership to provide more education about the shares system to club members throughout the country via its branches. And the education, he said should be for about six months to one year.
He also called on the leadership to review the discussions with Mohamed Dewji, who is interested in buying 51 per cent of the club shares for the betterment of the club development as failure of which he said will lead to breach of peace in the club. However, it’s was reported that the trustees later met the club top officials but details of their meeting were not revealed.
No comments:
Post a Comment