Allegations of misappropriation still unsolved by successive GASA executives

Nov 07, 2021 Sports

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Kaieteur News – President of the Guyana Amateur Swimming Association (GASA) Dwayne Scott took office last year during the height of covid-19 pandemic. Scott, who took over from Brian Goodridge, when questioned on an ongoing investigation on allegations of misappropriation of funds by senior GASA officials in 2018, said those issues happened before he was elected as GASA President.

The alleged misappropriation of funds by a national Coach and the then President, Ivan Persaud have not been investigated let alone solved after four years and two successive Administrations.
Scott admitted that he is aware of the allegations and once the evidence is provided he is willing to go to Police. Scott claimed that Persaud resigned and Goodridge assumed the leadership of GASA.
Scott added that until the evidence is produced he has no comment to make on the matter and reiterated his desire to take it to the Police. On 10th September, 2019 GASA sent a letter informing FINA that GASA’s Executive had been changed.
The letter added that the changes were brought about via an Extraordinary General Meeting, which was called by the Council to address financial irregularities and the direction in which the Association was heading.
Then, Goodridge as President, Elke Rodrigues – Vice President (Administration), Shefetah Tzedeq – Vice President (Technical), Yelema Phillips – Honorary Secretary, Valmikki Singh – Honorary Treasurer and Rene Charles – Assistant Secretary/Treasurer promised to launch an investigation and depending on the outcome, the guilty ones would’ve been dealt with accordingly.
This never happened and Scott suggested that Goodridge be asked about the issue. However, when contacted, Goodridge did not respond to the questions put to him. A source who attended the 2018 meeting, claimed Coach Sean Baksh admitted to forging signatures on receipts to cover up funds from FINA and that he ‘kicked out’ and did not resign.

When asked if there was evidence of this and why none of the two GASA Administrations after 2019, are pushing the issue, another senior official in swimming, speaking under the condition of anonymity, informed that there is evidence.

But it seems they all have secrets for one another. Those receipts were passed around during a special meeting and was handed over to the treasurer…. that was the last we saw or heard of it.
Dwayne Scott has now been sucked into their tangled web. I guess he loves the position he now has, and is afraid of being voted out, so he is playing politicor polytricks.
He is a member of the same club as most of the other exec members,” Continued the source.
When asked what was the likely outcome and what needs to happen moving forward, the source responded, “Well, it seems the only thing left is legal action…which we did not want, because that may cause the association to be sanctioned by FINA which was sent a report with half-truths and lies.”
President of the Dorado Speed Swim Club (DSSC) and qualified Coach, Nicolas Fraser feels this is much bigger than just the number of clubs who want an investigation.
“This is an issue of what is the right thing to do. After the findings were brought to light by the past president there was a General Meeting of the fraternity. This General Meeting is the highest decision-making body of the fraternity. And that body decided that an investigation was warranted and that a disciplinary committee must be put in place to investigate,” added Fraser.
“The previous president fought to get this situation sorted out but was outnumbered by the persons involved. This is probably why he does not want to have anything to do with GASA anymore. So with the current presidency, Dwayne seems to think that he can leave it be and probably the next president will deal with it.
But for now, we are only hearing talk of a disciplinary committee and a code of conduct. But nothing has been formed and nothing has been voted upon at the Council level regarding these things. And absolutely no action whatsoever,” continued Fraser, who noted that the solution is to do the right thing.
“There is no way that doing the moral and legal thing will hurt the image of GASA. In fact, if GASA’s executive orders a full investigation into the matter and let the chips fall where they may, then GASA would have scored some really high points in the public’s opinion.
But they have decided that they will hide and sweep everything under the rug hoping that everyone forgets about it. That is what is damaging the image of GASA. They know what they must do to improve the image of GASA but they are too committed to and comfortable with this modus operandi that they do not know how to be fair and transparent anymore.
It appears that GASA is unable to investigate itself. It that is the case, then FINA should get involved. The sanctioning of Guyana would be temporary until a full investigation is done and corrective measures are put in place to ensure this doesn’t happen again. So sanctioning will be temporary to ensure that we have all of our attention placed on fixing the situation.
FINA and the IOC have systems in place to ensure that swimmers are able to compete despite their country being sanctioned. You will remember this last Olympics that swimmers from Russia were able to compete although their country was sanctioned. They competed under the banner ROC (Russian Olympic Committee).
I believe that FINA would probably put an Interim Management Committee to run the affairs of GASA until the investigation is completed and that body will continue to ensure that swimmers are transparently selected for international meets and that the swimmers are able to competed” Fraser concluded.

 

 

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