The committee of the Africa Games for persons with disabilities known as JAPHAF in French, has revealed that the Gambia National Paralympics Committee is yet to settle its fees to become a full-time member of the committee
Djibril Ouedraogo, president of JAPHAF, was speaking to this reporter shortly after a meeting which aims to call on all the governing board members of the JAPHAF games to have an appropriate planning for the future actions that must be carried out.
According to Mr Ouedraogo, The Gambia participated in the 2007 JAPHAF games in Mauritania and won a silver medal in the handy footy games.
The Gambia Paralympics Committee sports team are yet to receive their accolade due to the fact that The Gambia has some fees to settle.
He pointed out that JAPHAF is an organization that works within its constitution and have to abide by the constitution.
“According to the constitution all participating countries must pay their registration fees but that was not the case for The Gambia in the Mauritania games but anytime The Gambia pays its membership fee they will be given their silver medal,” he explained.
For his part, the secretary general of JAPHAF, who doubles as a member of the International Paralympics Committee, Harouna Ousuane, said that according to the financial plan distributed during the meeting to all the governing board members of JAPHAF, till The Gambia settle her dues, her Paralympics association will not become a full member with voting rights, “which is in line with the constitution of the JAPHAF games”.
According to him, since the JAPHAF seminar in 2000 in Togo, it has been announced that the organization is not only for francophone countries, as it was before, but membership to the organization is now open to even the English-speaking countries; that is why The Gambia and many other countries are part of the organisation.
He added that JAPHAF is going to work further to put more effort so that even the Portuguese and other countries that are not francophone or Anglophone can join the organisation.
The organisation, he said, is going to take an extension to be an Africa games for classification and to improve the level of performance of the Paralympics athletes in Africa and for the continent to be well represented in future Paralympics Games.
