The Tribune

By LAMECH JOHNSON

Tribune Staff Reporter

ljohnson@tribunemedia.net

“DISRESPECTFUL” was how members of the Government Secondary Schools Sports Association described the actions of their former executives reneging on a legal decision by the GSSSA to suspend sports until the Bahamas Union of Teachers’ work-to-rule dispute with the Ministry of Education was resolved.

Addressing the media yesterday about a vote-of-no-confidence meeting that was claimed to be unconstitutional by the ousted executives, GSSSA secretary general Varel Davis said: “Mr Johnson and his executive team had a meeting with the Minister of Education, and went behind, like members said, their backs and agreed with the minister to start sports even though the members voted not to start.

“So that is why we had the vote of no confidence.

“Now it was said in a press conference yesterday that the secretary has no rights to call a meeting. But what I have in my hand today is the constitution that governs the GSSSA, and article 9, no.3, said ‘extraordinary general meetings of the association shall be summoned by the secretary at the request of the president or by the majority of the member schools.

“So the meeting was called by the members of the association, not Varel Davis. So let’s make that clear,” she said.

On Thursday, just hours before the GSSSA basketball season started at the DW Davis Gym, the GSSSA held a joint press conference with the Ministry of Education and its parent body, the NPAPHSP - the New Providence Association of Public High School Principals - at the ministry to set the record straight.

Among their clarifications was an announcement on Thursday morning that the GSSSA president, first vice president, second vice president and assistant treasurer had been removed from office at a meeting held on Wednesday.

NPAPHSP’s president T Nicola McKay, the principal at CR Walker Secondary School, said the meeting was unconstitutional because only herself or Johnson could call a meeting. Further she said that if there are any grievances within the GSSSA, they had to be addressed to the NPAPHSP and then forwarded to the Ministry of Education.

They claimed that none of these procedures were adhered to prior to the meeting being called where Davis, secretary general of the GSSSA, had resumed the duties of the association in the absence of Johnson, Bain, Simmons and Hanna.

McKay further said the after-school activities by the GSSSA has nothing to do with the work-to-rule while Education Minister Jerome Fitzgerald added that while they have a number of coaches already employed by the Ministry of Education for the after-school sports, those who would wish not to participate will be replaced.