HIGHLANDERS Football Club will be forced to extend the begging bowl to raise funds needed to pay duty for the bus they are importing from South Africa, Bosso chief executive officer Ndumiso Gumede has revealed.
BY SAKHELENI NXUMALO
The veteran football administrator told NewsDay Sport that they had no option, but to seek well-wishers who will assist financially after their efforts to get a duty rebate from the government hit a brick wall.
Highlanders need about $27 000 to clear the bus and Gumede hinted that they would target fans living in the Diaspora to assist them raise money for the import duty, but said full details on how that would be done would be revealed at a press conference set for midday tomorrow.
“We got correspondence that our request for a duty rebate was turned down a couple of days ago so it’s still early for you to ask what our next course of action will be, but I believe we now have to look for well-wishers to assist the club,” Gumede said.
Bosso recently engaged the government in a bid to avoid paying duty for the bus which was bought with the assistance of club benefactor Tshinga Dube.
Highlanders gave Dube $20 000, which was their prize money from the Bob89 tournament and he added $25 000 and purchased a Marcopolo bus which is now stuck in South Africa as the Bulawayo giants struggle to raise import duty. Reasons given when turning down Highlanders’ request were that a bus did not fall under sporting goods that qualify for tax rebates and that only sporting associations affiliated to the Sports and Recreation Commission were eligible for such a facility and Highlanders were not.
Gumede said this was problematic because the bus would be used for sports.
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“There is a problem with that law as the bus will be used to transport the team to wherever we will be carrying out our sporting activities. I think it is not proper to only consider sportswear like gloves and football boots as sporting goods,” he said.
Zifa communications manager Xolisani Gwesela said they had done their best to assist Highlanders on the matter. “We tried our best to engage the government, but we were told that the rules and regulations were very clear so the issue was beyond Zifa,” Gwesela said.
Highlanders are still using a mini bus bought several years ago after turning down a bigger bus from Nyaradzo Funeral Services as it breached the contract with their sponsors BancABC. Dynamos, also sponsored by BancABC, however, grabbed the bus although it belongs to Nyaradzo and not the club.
