27 Jan 2022

The African Union Sports Council Region 5 Council of Ministers has amended its constitution to align it with its organisational re-engineering model.  

A news release from Region 5 office says the ministers approved the new constitution during their virtual meeting on January 19, following the review of the constitution, which started in November 2019 when the Council of Ministers approved the recommendation by the executive committee to embark on an organisational re-engineering process.

The releases says the process was completed by December 2020, after which the ministers tasked the executive committee to embark on a process that would lead to the region adopting a more efficient, robust and contemporary organisation.  

The Region 5 executive committee tabled an organisational re-engineering model dubbed ‘3S+P’ for consideration by the Council of Ministers on December 4.

The model addressed transformation of the Region 5 strategy, structure, skills and programmes hence the title 3S+P.  

The model proposed new ways of doing business including introduction of a new structure to run the organisation.

One of the most significant changes prominent in the structure of the Region is the introduction of permanent secretaries in the ministries responsible for sport in Region 5 member countries to be part of the decision-making process in their capacity as advisory board.

The advisory board will table recommendations for consideration by the Council of Ministers.

“It will now be the responsibility of the advisory board to advise the Troika of Ministers and to approve recommendations from the Region 5 committee of experts,” says the release

The thirty-member grouping of what used to be the executive committee made up of directors of sport, chairpersons and CEOs of sports commissions or councils, will now be split into six experts’ commissions of marketing, business development and international relations; human resources, education and training; physical education, sports development and recreation; budget, finance, risk and legal; governance, audit and ethics and high-performance commissions.

Chairpersons of each of the six commissions plus a three-member bureau will form a committee of experts that will consider reports from the six commissions and table recommendations to the Advisory Board.

According to the release, the appointment of members to serve in these commissions is meant to place experts into their functional areas of expertise and specialization to derive more value out of the latent skills and expertise endowed in the region’s human capital.  

The release says, the other significant feature of the new structure is the removal of elections from the selection of leadership of the various organs.  

In the same manner that leadership rotates at council of ministers’ level, so shall it be for the advisory board and committee of expert’s bureau, it says.  

The chairpersonship of council is assigned to the minister responsible for sport in a Region 5 member country, whose country will be hosting the Region 5 Games.

The minister of the next games’ host country assumes vice chairpersonship, while the minister of sport in the country that hosted the previous Region 5 Games becomes the third member of the Troika of Ministers, which holds office for a tenure of two years.  

Both the advisory board and the committee of expert’s bureau leadership will be rotated in the same manner as council of ministers with the exception that at advisory board level, it will be permanent secretaries while at committee of expert’s bureau it will be directors of sport, the release explains.

This rotation system which is consistent with the African Union system of appointing Specialized Technical Committee of Ministers responsible for Youth Culture and Sport (STC-YCS) affords each country an opportunity to be in leadership of the Region at one point or another, thereby promoting diversity of skills and equal opportunity for leadership, it says.

The release further says given that such changes as approved by Council of Ministers in the organisational re-engineering model required amendment of the constitution, a team of four legal experts drawn from Botswana, eSwatini, Lesotho and Zimbabwe was put in place to facilitate the process of aligning the constitution to the newly approved business model.

Upon conclusion of all processes and procedures, Council of Ministers then on 19 January 2022 approved the amended constitution to pave way for establishment of all the new organs to be established for efficient execution of business, it says. ENDS