Ahead of the Botswana Football Association (BFA) elective General Assembly, the then suspended first vice president Segolame Ramotlhwa had written a scathing letter to the delegates.
Known as the SLR Dossier, the letter was expected to form part of the former BFA first vice president’s submission to the general assembly concerning his suspension from the BFA National Executive Committee (NEC).
His submission at the elective general assembly was expected to be the silver bullet that would kill the Maclean Letshwiti regime.
Many had believed, whether rightly or wrongly, it would swing some voters, more especially undecided ones, not to vote for the Letshwiti led regime.
In the letter, he savaged his erstwhile bedfellows in the BFA NEC portraying them as ‘yes men’ who were serving at the behest of a dictatorial BFA president.
To say Ramotlhwa painted an unflattering image of the BFA president and his executive committee will be an understatement.
Among other things, the former BFA first vice president seemed to be portraying the BFA under the regime as a nepotistic organisation.
He cited, among others, the hand picking of the association Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and the Presidential Protocol Officer as signs of nepotism.
Ramotlhwa also questioned, it seems, the 2017 re-employment of another gentleman with ‘a financial track record’ of misappropriation of funds, something he was against.
Other issues of concern in the letter included the US$20 000 (+/-P200 000) CAF annual allowances for the BFA president, the suspected self-allocation of shares in the BFA academy by the president and his close allies as well as what he believed was a complete disregard for BFA constitution by the association president.
Whether by design or otherwise, when the time came for the former BFA vice president to make his submissions to the assembly, he was nowhere to be found.
His absence sparked a debate as to whether his submissions should be allowed, with one delegate asking whether it would not be just an academic exercise.
While Letshwiti agreed it would be an academic exercise as he would be an NEC member for barely 20 minutes if the assembly overruled his suspension, he however advocated process be followed.
Querried by one delegate whether he had invited him, BFA CEO Mfolo Mfolo replied that he had.
The assembly would however learn through the then aspiring BFA president Tebogo Sebego that Ramotlhwa had just told him in a conversation that he had not been invited.
Sebego then called on the assembly to let the matter pass without debate as a show of reconciliation as preached by the Minister of Sports in his key note address to the assembly.
By the time Ramotlhwa knocked in the virtual door of the BFA assembly to make his presentation, the administrator closed him out.
As a result, the general assembly never got to hear and debate the former association first vice president’s submissions.
And just like that, the BFA had been sparred from answering some of the explosive allegations in the SLR dossier.
