Mr. Mendy made these remarks in an exclusive interview with Pointsports in response to Mr. Jallow’s recent comments and alleged interference with GBA affairs.
Mr. Jallow, who is the current secretary general of Gambia National Olympic Committee (GNOC), said NSC’s interference with GBA brought the whole problem.
“I am not surprised that Abdoulie Jallow has proven to be one of the most dishonest people who have served The Gambia Basketball Association,” said the NSC boss.
He added that Mr. Jallow is using his position as adviser to FIBA Africa (Federation of International Basketball in Africa) to hinder GBA new executive’s recognition at FIBA Africa.
He added that Mr. Jallow cannot do the same at FIBA International because he does not have any connection there.
Mr. Mendy added that they are investigating FIBA Africa’s previous letter, noting that if they found out that it was Jallow who sent the letter “he will face the full force of the law.”
He explained that the issue of basketball started when their stakeholders filed a petition against the Papa Njie-led executive to the NSC in which Abdoulie Jallow was the SG of the association.
He added that as the body mandated to regulate, control, supervise, and monitor national sports associations and sports bodies in the country, they acted on the petition when they received it.
“After receiving the petition we invited the former executive to clarify some of the issues filed against them. After a few discussions with the former executive and their stakeholders, we found that issues being complained about by basketball stakeholders were true,” he said.
According to him, as a regulatory body of sporting associations, when there is a petition against someone, they just do not act, but instead study, review and investigate it very well before taking actions.
He added that they asked the former executive to organise an Annual General Meeting (AGM) so that they can together with stakeholders discuss their issues and resolve them.
“On the date of the AGM, there was a fracas and the meeting could not proceed because they (former executive) denied three people or clubs from entering the AGM hall even though those people came with their accreditation cards made by them (the former executive),” he further explained.
“After our investigation again, we realised that the people denied entry at the AGM were founders and presidents of respective clubs they came to represent. We again wrote to them to reorganise another AGM and allow them entry to the hall.”
“As a sports authority, we cannot sit back and watch people going into congress or AGM and start fighting. If that happens, we would be neglecting our duties.”
He noted that in order to avoid that, they wrote to them and asked them (former executive) to prepare their reports and that sports council will take over the organization of the AGM. “Soon after we informed them that, they all wrote and resigned.”
“When they resigned we went ahead with the AGM. We reviewed the constitution because even Mr. Jallow cannot show us where the constitution was adopted at an AGM. So if the executive cannot show any proof of the constitution being approved at an AGM, it means that the complaints by the petitioners were right.”
“We went ahead and made a constitution for basketball like we do for regional sports committees. We shared it with their clubs for review before the AGM so that they would not spend the whole day in the AGM.”
“After we did a constitution for them we decided they should adopt it and hold an elective congress because we did not want to install an interim or run the Basketball Association. It was then that stakeholders elected their executive members.”
He added that Mr. Jallow is dishonest because he (Mr. Mendy) spoke with him twice to sign the specimen form which he refused.
“Just to show how dishonest Jallow is, he (Mr. Jallow) refused to countersign the specimen form as one of the signatories to GBA account. This was brought to us and we talked to him. In fact I talked to him personally in which he promised to do it twice but failed to. I call his former president Papa Njie and several others such as Dodou Capi Joof GNOC president, Ousman Wadda, Chiko Njie of GAA. All these people spoke to him to sign the specimen and he refused,” Mendy said.
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