Corrupt Director at Sport Ministry
Some members of the Sierra Leone Taekwondo family are reportedly in hot water with the Director of Sport due to delay in granting ‘national recognition’ to the legally constituted Taekwondo association.
It could be recalled that in 2009, two Taekwondo associations applied to the Ministry of Youth and Sports, appealing for national recognition in the arena of sport in Sierra Leone.
The two applications have since reached the table of the Director of Sport, Bai Kabia, whom, we are told, is also a Chief in his home town in Lunsar north of Sierra Leone.
The Andrea Hope Executive and Oness A. Johnson Executive are the Taekwondo association’s leaders that sent in respective application letters to the office of the Director of Sport requesting national recognition.
It is a fact that the Director of Sport has had no time examining documents submitted to him by the two applying Taekwondo associations, but rather ordered his Desk Officer, Victor Hastings-Spaine to investigate which among the two, meets legal stipulations for national acknowledgment.
Findings have it though that Victor Hasting-Spaine inquired into the conduct of the applying Taekwondo associations and later submitted a report to the Director of Sport recommending the Oness A. Johnson Executive, which according to him, fulfilled the criteria of becoming a body representing Taekwondo sport in Sierra Leone.
The report revealed however that the Andrea Hope led Executive is a shadow that exists in oblivion, and that by all indications, the very Andrea Hope has withdrawn from the position of President – because he was dubiously found wanting of occupying Presidential positions in three sporting disciplines in Sierra Leone.
The report further disclosed that the elected Vice President in the Andrea Hope Executive, Idrissa Massaquoi, is also the President of Judo.
That in essence, it is only Idrissa Massaquoi and the coach that constitutes the Andrea Hope Executive.
Our findings are that the Director of Sport, has in the recent past, connived with the Andrea Hope led Executive in the preparation of a constitution which they never had submitted when forwarding their application letter in 2009.
Information reaching this press has it that Mr. Andrea Hope is in union with the Director of Sport and members of the National Olympic Committee (NOC) in Sierra Leone thus his manipulation and disorderly formation of respective martial arts disciplines in the country.
A source has said that the President of the Sierra Leone Football Association, Nahim Khadi, at one point, joined Andrea Hope in his pursuits to allure martial artists appoint him as their President.
Reflection must be drawn to the fact that Taekwando sport has been dormant for 36 months now. It is so because the Ministry of Sport is yet to appoint a body nationally acknowledged.
The Director of Sport, Bai Kabia, was contacted for comment but told this press that he has failed to appoint a national Taekwondo body because there is controversy from among the membership.
Albeit admitting to the fact that his Desk Officer submitted a report concerning the two competing Taekwondo associations, he said he could not go by recommendations in the report because his request for a meeting with the parties concerned has not been met.
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