FORMER Highlanders Football Club team manager Jerry Sibanda has taken over as acting treasurer following the resignation of Odiel Nkomo last week.
REPORT BY SUKOLUHLE MTHETHWA SPORTS REPORTER
Board secretary Jimmy Ncube confirmed the development to NewsDay Sport yesterday.
“We have confirmed Jerry Sibanda as Highlanders acting treasurer with immediate effect. The appointment was approved by the board in consultation with the executive. He will be in charge until the next annual general meeting. We chose him because he is a former executive member and he is not new to the Highlanders system,” he said.
Nkomo tendered his resignation last week, barely three months before the end of his tenure amid an audit report by Grant Thornton accountants, who unearthed financial irregularities at the club.
Further investigations, after the club sought Premier Soccer League records, reportedly revealed books were not in order, prompting Bosso to mull taking action against Nkomo.
However, figures obtained during the investigations have not been made available.
Contacted for comment, Sibanda, a former Gwanda Ramblers and Bosso striker, said he had not yet received the letter of appointment.
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“I am not aware of that. I have not received any letter, so it is impossible for me to comment,” he said.
He is former manager of the club and is a senior manager at the Bulawayo City Council.
Nkomo is alleged to have paid himself $6 680 from the Premiership football club coffers without authority after Highlanders made a profit of $40 500 from the league match against Dynamos at Barbourfields Stadium in July.
He is alleged to have unilaterally withdrawn funds from the club’s treasury saying the money was owed to him by the club.
Former Highlanders players are reported to have approached Sibanda earlier in the year not to put his nomination for the post of secretary, which was being contested for by another former Highlanders manager Emmett Ndlovu in January.
Instead they are reported to have agreed that he would challenge Nkomo in elections come January 2013, but the changes that have taken place now leave Sibanda as the front runner for the elections.
