Letter to the Sports Editor

Dec 08, 2021 Sports

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GASA and good governance

Dear Mr. Sports Editor,

Kaieteur News – The President of the Guyana Amateur Swimming Association (GASA) will be travelling to Abu Dhabi on December 18, 2021 to discuss and ratify several critical areas of reform in the International Swimming Federation (FINA), namely: Governance; Marketing; Events Communication; Digital Transformation and Safeguarding; Medical and Equity. In many regards, GASA is at a critical crossroad as it relates to the first area of FINA reform: Governance. On one side, they can continue to let corrupt practices continue and hide these corrupt practices from FINA, or on the other side, they can choose to stop misleading FINA and correct their gross misconducts of the past. As I will illustrate to you, GASA has chosen to continue with its corrupt practices and misinforms FINA.
As disclosed to you in my last letter, GASA had uncovered deliberate falsification of receipts in accounting for the expenditure of FINA Olympic Aquatics Support Programme (OASP) funds in 2018. The lack of action in executing the decisions of GASA’s own General Meeting held in September 2019 to investigate and address these misappropriations indicates that consecutive administrations are shielding persons from being investigated for financial wrongdoings.
To compound the issue of OASP funds, GASA has provided information to FINA on a Governance Survey which they know to be untrue. The Survey is an evaluation tool that scores points towards the ranking of the national federation in relation to governance. The higher the score, the higher the amount of funds will be given to each national federation in 2022. So, if the national federation is evaluated as having a high level of governance they are eligible to receive USD$30,000; a medium level of governance beings USD$22,500; a basic level of governance gives USD$15,000; and developing governance is entered into the Mentorship programme. The following twelve responses provided to FINA are simply false:
Q1: GASA stated that there is a strategic or operational plan. As far I know, GASA has not tabled a strategic plan or operational plan to the General Meeting for approval in over a decade.
Q3: GASA stated that their (current) constitution was ratified by FINA in 1993. Yet the current version of GASA’s constitution is dated 2005, this is the document that is used to guide its affairs.
Q14: Even though GASA does not have a Code of Ethics in place, they still informed FINA that they did.
Q15: Part of the reason GASA has not sorted out its financial issues is that it does not have a disciplinary commission or ethics commission in place, yet it reported to FINA that it has one.
Q16. GASA reported to FINA that it has financial statements audited on an annual basis by an external financial auditor. As I indicated in my last letter, GASA’s last financial audit report (2018) indicated that an opinion on the finances could not be provided since they could not even verify the existence of the cash balance. There were no audits done for the period 2011 through 2017.
Q17: GASA has not presented a budget to its General Assembly (General Meeting) in more than a decade, yet, GASA responded in the affirmative to FINA when asked about this.
Q18: GASA informed FINA that a summary of its financial information is published in open access to external partners and the general public. This is simply not true and you can easily verify this.
Q21: On June 4, 2021, FINA approved new rules on the protection from harassment and abuse, GASA has not implemented any new bylaws or rules of its own in more than a decade and does not have any protection from harassment and abuse rules, yet GASA responded that it has implemented similar rules as FINA on the protection from harassment and abuse.
Q22: GASA does not have any policies or rules on the protection of athletes’ health and medical care, yet GASA informed FINA that it has these policies or rules in place.
Q23: GASA has not incorporated FINA Doping Control Rules into its own rules: it does not appear in any of the 2 ratified documents of GASA – the constitution or the financial bylaws. Yet GASA indicated to FINA that it has.
Q24: Even more surprising is that GASA informed FINA that it conducts Anti-Doping Education on a yearly basis. This is simply not true.
Q25: Finally, GASA stated that it engages in activities to promote principles of fairness and fair play and fights against the main threats to those values. There are dozens and dozens of examples of athletes, coaches and officials being sidelined by GASA simply because they are from the Dorado Speed Swim Club – and it continues to this day. So we can assure you that GASA does not promote principles of fairness and fair play and it has driven many swimmers away from the sport.
Mr Editor, I have highlighted many issues to GASA over my short stint so far as President of Dorado, and there are others who have been doing so for years with no solutions being implemented. For example, the Dorado Speed Swim Club has been asking that GASA treat swimmers fairly by implementing transparent selection policies for athlete and coach selection. This transparent process is impossible due to a coach who is the head coach of 3 of the clubs affiliated with GASA (and GASA doesn’t see any issue with this inherent conflict of interest) also controls who is selected to represent Guyana by shifting the goal posts when it suits his narrative. What is jarring is that he has admitted to defrauding FINA in 2018, but because he coaches half of all affiliated clubs in GASA and is the leader of the cabal that controls GASA nothing will come out of this. In the end, there is no fairness in the swimmer selection process since the process can change even after the Team Selection Meet is completed.
Mr Editor, we must teach our young charges that hard work and only the best performances are what get you to the top. We should not teach our young swimmers that playing politics, trading in favours and covering up serious improprieties is the way to go. Not at all!
GASA should be following the FINA Good Governance Guide 2021 and as part of the FINA reform process currently underway, transparency in its activities with all stakeholders including the media is paramount. Therefore, I invite you to again verify all that I have written above with the current executive of GASA. Ultimately, the evidence shows that GASA doesn’t practice good governance, and if this is the case, how is GASA’s President going to contribute to FINA’s reform agenda in Abu Dhabi this month given their track record?
Yours sincerely,
Nicholas Fraser
Bachelor of Physical Education and Sport
Master of Business Administration – Sports Management

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