By Foday Moriba Conteh
The Executive President of Sierra Leone Association of Women in Journalism (SLAWIJ), Millicent Kargbo, has responded, on the 3rd August, 2023, to a termination letter dated 31st July 2023 and titled, “Termination of Interim Executive for Breach of Corporate Governance Principles”, addressed to her by the Corporate Secretary of the Association, Yeama Thompson.
She stated that the Corporate Secretary has chosen to mislead the general public by presenting a facade Board that took an illegal decision to terminate the interim executive, which she heads.
She disclosed that it is an open secret that they are working hard to hold the Association’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) at which they plan to establish their Board of Directors, among other things.
Millicent Kargbo stated, in very strong terms, that the Corporate Secretary does not have the legal mandate to issue such a termination letter or directive to her and other members of the Interim Executive.
She claimed that the issue was never brought up at any general meeting, and maintained how it was news to the general body and also the majority of the five SLAWIJ Directors, further revealing that the information came as a surprise to all.
It could be recalled that in the “termination letter” scathing allegations were made against the SLAWIJ Executive President bordering on the violation or bastardization of corporate governance, including serious claims of financial impropriety, lack of transparency, failure to convene an Annual General Meeting among other claims.
However, a veteran journalist, who was commenting on the issue wittily pointed out that SLAWIJ has a Board of Directors made up of five members maintaining that three out of the five Directors never gave directives to Yeama Thompson to go ahead and terminate the Interim Executive and that the decision never emanated from the general membership.
The veteran journalist also argued that the portion of Yeama’s letter which stated that, “The Corporate Affairs Commission has been duly informed and the status of registration has been reviewed”, is problematic, as the faction has no right to review the status of SLAWIJ without the directives of the Executive President, the consent of other Directors of the Association and the general membership.
“In fact, that decision, if it was to be taken, should have been adopted by the general membership and directives given to Yeama Thomson as Company Secretary to update the files at the Corporate Affairs Commission,” he technically argued maintaining that such a procedure was never followed.
He went further to assert that out of five (5) Directors only two ( 2) of them went to the Corporate Affairs Commission and surreptitiously changed the names of the Directors without recourse to the three (3) other Directors and the general membership.
“What Yeama and others have done is non-procedural and in fact it is a coup d’état against the sitting SLAWIJ executive,” the Sage logically concluded.
He continued how because of their selfish motives, they have somehow dragged the Association’s name into the mud, ignoring the fact that all the hundreds of women in SLAWIJ depend on the reputation of the entity to help alleviate the challenges of women in the media.
In another development, an insider in Yeama’s disgruntled camp, who confided in this medium on the condition of anonymity, revealed that the plan of Yeama and others is to change the name of the Association.
As the situation stands, there is a stalemate within the Association, which is not an affiliate body of SLAJ and currently moves are been made to settle the impasse in order to chart a way forward.
