MASERU –—The Lesotho Football Association (Lefa) has denied allegations of misusing funds meant for the A Division league.
Last week the former spokesperson of the A Division Management Committee (Admaco) Mosebo Motsoasele said he resigned because Lefa misused about M93 000 meant for his committee.
According to Motsoasele, Admaco was supposed to receive M13 000 from the 2008 Vodacom Soccer Spectacular, M40 000 from Vodacom to pay A Division referees for the 2009/10 season and another M40 000 for the following term (2010/11).
Motsoasele told the Sunday Express, a sister paper to the Lesotho Times, last week that Lefa never released those funds.
He alleged that the association has misappropriated the money, leaving the committee to scrounge around for resources to run the A Division.
But Lefa’s chief executive officer Mofihli Makoele has denied Motsoasele’s charges calling them lies.
“We have never misused any funding meant for any of our sub-committees. I personally have witnessed payments made to relevant parties,” Makoele told the Lesotho Times this week.
“There has never been a time that this association has misused any funds. What happens is that Lefa do not give any of our sub-committees cash but pays their claims on their behalf,” he said.
These allegations, according to Makoele, were all lies because “just because Ntate Motsoasele does not know how Lefa runs its structures and his lack of knowledge does not mean that we misuse funds.”
Makoele said Lefa “do not give its sub-committees cash but always pays for their claims whenever such committees make ‘sensible’ claims”.
“I have witnessed payments for referees done and many of Admaco’s claims were paid on their behalf,” he said.
To prove that Lefa had not misused the funds as Motsoasele alleges, Makoele produced a document showing that the association has already paid the A Division referees some of their monies for the matches officiated between February and March.
The referees’ claims, made by the Lesotho Referees Association’s treasurer Mohau Sentšo, show the number of games
officiated by each referee, their names, match dates and the total each referee must be paid.
The claims, totalling M5 900 plus M1 000 for match commissioners, have already been paid and the recipients signed to acknowledge receiving their dues.
Other documents could not be released because the association’s financial controllers had to check the files to account for M13 000 from the 2008 Vodacom Soccer Spectacular and the M40 000 meant for Admaco for the 2009/10 season.
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