– Today’s GOA special AGM to decide Yassin’s fate for re-elections bid

THE Guyana Olympic Association (GOA), one of the biggest stakeholders in Sports, will be hosting a special Annual General Meeting (AGM) today at its Lilliendaal headquarters, to ratify its new constitution as proposed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Expected to be of importance is the adaptation of the IOC’s recommendation for an age limit for anyone serving on the Executive Committee of the important sports institution.

The current president of the GOA, Kalam Juman-Yassin, is the longest-serving sports administrator in Guyana, having held the position since December of 1996.

Yassin is seeking re-election, even though it was recommended by the IOC, that the Association’s IOC-ratified constitution has an age limit of 70.

Yassin, a former Chief Magistrate, just celebrated his 75th birth anniversary, while insisting that there should be no age limit.

Jerome Poivey, the IOC’s Associate Director, Institutional Relations and Governance of the NOC Relations Department, said he had carefully examined the GOA’s draft given the Olympic Charter and the basic principles of good governance.

It is understood that several countries have already adopted the IOC’s position, including Haiti, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica.

Institution of terms limits for serving presidents was a motion brought up at the last AGM held in 2016 by Guyana Squash Association and unanimously agreed on by the General Council.

It was agreed that the term limit position should be retroactive from 2012. However, Yassin, in recent times had indicated that his position was not backdated which would mean that his last term or ability to contest would be 2024.

The executives of the GOA are Kalam Juman-Yassin (President), Dr Karen Pilgrim (Vice-President), Godfrey Munroe (Vice-President), Charles Corbin (Vice-President), Garfield Wiltshire (Honorary Treasurer), Hector Edwards (Secretary-General), Deion Nurse (Asst Secretary), Tricia Fiedtkou (Asst. Secretary-Treasurer).