TWO WEEKS after putting in a new council, basketball is already preparing to extend the shelf life of the next executive.
The Barbados Amateur Basketball Association (BABA) is facing a constitutional change that will require future executive councils to serve four-year terms instead of the current two-year stints in order to fulfil a FIBA mandate.
Caribbean Basketball Confederation (CBC) vice-president of technical operations Glyne Clarke, said that the amendment has to be made to the constitution by the end of August.
However, the BABA will not be required to institute the new four-year term until January 2014.
The move is being made to correlate tenures with those of the governing body FIBA, who recently revisited its statues and operates on a four-year cycle.
“It is being done so there is continuity in the various programmes,” said Clarke of the increased terms in office.
“What we’ve found in our region is that a lot of countries either have a one-year or two-year rotation but FIBA would implement programmes geared for their quadrennial. So they want to ensure that any president who starts a programme is there for the full four-year cycle.”
Former BABA president Carlos Moore originally made mention of the change last year while he was still in office, saying that the shift was necessary as part of a wider constitutional reform.
But the proposal was met with opposition from one-time head Gay Griffith, who reasoned that the BABA is not ready for that type of organisation in the absence of a full-time staff.
It will be the second time this decade that the BABA will be extending the shelf life of its executive council, following Griffith’s earlier departure from one-year terms.
However, another one-year term might be in the offing.
Less than two weeks ago, the BABA elected a new executive under new president Derrick Garrett to sit in office until 2013.
That would leave a one-year gap between the next general elections and the one constitutionally due for 2014, meaning that the next executive could be in power for either one year or five to meet FIBA’s mandate.
“The main thing is to revise the constitution as mandated by FIBA,” advised Clarke.
“FIBA Americas has already revamped theirs and we (CBC) had to do the same so all that’s left to do is for the member countries to follow suit.”
