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Innocent Kurira, Sports Reporter
BASKETBALL Union of Zimbabwe (Buz) president Joe Mujuru says the country will host a major international competition in January next year with Bulawayo set to be the host city.

The event will be the FIBA Afro-basket Zone Six qualifiers. Countries expected to take part will include Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Angola, South Africa, Lesotho, Botswana and hosts Zimbabwe.

“We are excited to have our national team back in action. The Afro basket qualifiers were initially meant to take place in November but the competition will now be held in January. We will have the competition in Bulawayo with the venue likely to be the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF),” said Mujuru.

Mujuru and his January elected executive continues to run the affairs of the union while awaiting guidance from the Administrative Court.

The Sports and Recreation Commission (SRC) nullified the Buz elections outcome in May citing gross irregularities and called for fresh polls.

In response, Buz through its lawyers Sengweni Legal Practice, appealed against the decision and the matter is now before the courts.

The stormy elective annual general meeting was held at Mtshabezi High School in Matabeleland South on January 29 and incumbent president Mujuru was re-elected after seeing off the challenge of David Pick in a closely contested race that went into a tie breaker after both got five votes each, while another candidate Allen Mavhunga managed to get one vote.

In the tie breaker, Mujuru polled six votes to Pick’s five. Pick was later elected first vice-president.
After the elections, Harare Basketball Association (HBA) accused the Buz executive committee of breaching procedural and structural processes in the run-up to the elective general meeting.

HBA accused Mujuru and his secretary-general Charmaine Chamboko of manipulating the union’s electoral process to favour their preferred outcome. The association sought the intervention of the SRC to help address their grievances.