Ken Borland

Like a top-class snooker player or a chess grandmaster, sports minister Nathi Mthethwa has now backed the Cricket South Africa Board into a corner from which they can only extricate themselves by acceding to his wishes.

That’s the view of former International Cricket Council and Cricket South Africa CEO Haroon Lorgat following Minister Mthethwa’s announcement on Wednesday that CSA had until October 27 to give him written reasons why he should not intervene in their affairs following the continued refusal of their Board to step down.

Mthethwa has also notified the ICC of his intention to intervene, raising the possibility of CSA’s membership being suspended, which would mean the Proteas being banned from international action and domestic cricket no longer being recognised.

“It’s a terrible situation and the Board now has so much egg on their faces that they have banded together to try and protect their own interests. But I think CSA ae now snookered, they have checkmated themselves. The Minister and Sascoc have covered their bases and I suspect their legal advisors told them to be patient and follow process.

“I have been impressed by the patience and good process followed by the Minister and I think he has compared notes with Sascoc and given CSA a fair chance. CSA are members of Sascoc and Sascoc has oversight responsibility, but the arrogant Board have just refused to budge. So the Minister’s announcement is a positive step and hopefully it’s now checkmate,” Lorgat told The Citizen on Wednesday.

Lorgat was also highly critical of the CSA Board’s attempt to take on Mthethwa, as revealed by the letters between the two parties published by The Citizen on Wednesday morning [https://citizen.co.za/sport/south-african-sport/sa-cricket-sport/2370372/more-woes-for-crickets-embattled-williams-as-minister-mthethwa-cracks-the-whip/].

“I have never seen this level of digging in heels before in South African sport. You may win one battle against the Minister of Sport but you are never going to win the war. Show me one stakeholder other than the 12 in the CSA Boardroom who support CSA’s stance? There’s no doubt the Minister has popular support for his actions,” Lorgat said.

The seasoned administrator, who this week was appointed director of strategy and development for the Abu Dhabi T10 League, said it was not guaranteed, however, that the ICC were going to automatically suspend CSA if Mthethwa does formally intervene in their affairs.

“In terms of the ICC, there’s a difference between interference and intervention. If there’s a family and there’s a tiff here and there, that’s normal in a marriage and the sports minister stepping in would be tantamount to interference. But if there’s a family and the father is going off the rails, if the kids are getting hurt or someone’s going to get murdered, then good people are going to intervene.

“I think the ICC may see this as a necessary intervention. A previous example was India when their Supreme Court ran a committee of administrators for three years in order to reform the BCCI and get it away from the likes of the Srinivasans. They were not suspended because a proper process was followed and cricket supporters and stakeholders are entitled to proper administration,” Lorgat explained.

What will happen if the ICC do decide to suspend Cricket South Africa?

• Firstly, they will write to the Minister of Sport telling him not to intervene or CSA will be suspended;
• If the Minister continues with his intervention, the ICC will then suspend CSA and stop all funding to them, as well as halt all recognised cricket, including the Proteas and domestic teams. Any cricket in South Africa will be deemed unsanctioned cricket, plunging the country back into isolation and expunging any games played during this period from the record books;
• England’s proposed white-ball tour in November/December will be cancelled, meaning CSA will lose around R70 million, a much-needed boost for their embattled finances;
• Zimbabwe were suspended by the ICC in mid-2019 due to political interference, meaning they missed qualifying for the World T20. The suspension was lifted three months later when Zimbabwe’s sport minister reinstated the ZC Board.
• A three-month suspension would decimate the South African season, putting paid to proposed series against Sri Lanka and Pakistan, and causing catastrophic damage to CSA’s already parlous financial situation.

A hard-hitting letter from Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture Nathi Mthethwa to Beresford Williams probably ices the cake in terms of sealing the fate of Cricket South Africa’s acting president, who has indicated his desire to stand for the permanent position at the AGM on December 5.

Williams was told by parliament’s sports portfolio committee to recuse himself from Tuesday’s hearing with CSA because he is implicated in the Fundudzi Forensic Report, not only for his involvement in a R5 million loan to the Western Province Cricket Association that he was formerly president of, but also being on the Board committee who appointed Thabang Moroe as full-time CEO in 2018 after he had been acting for a year despite him not meeting the minimum requirements for the post.

But Williams’ shares have fallen even further with the leaking of a letter from sports minister Mthethwa, who is clearly adamantly against Williams continuing as president. Replying to a letter from CSA, signed by Williams, which states that the CSA Board have decided not to step down and told Mthethwa he did not have the legal power to force them, the sports minister threatened: “As a parting shot, I wish to reiterate that I shall not be dissuaded from applying what the National Sport and Recreation Act 110 of 1998 enjoins me to do”.

The Mthethwa letter begins: “I note that instead of accurately depicting what was said at the meeting we had on 6 October, you have taken the liberty to put words into my mouth. To that end, I will use my response to correct some of the inaccuracies that are evident in your letter”.

Mthethwa went on to say he did not provide the directive for Williams and the Board to step down, but instead was agreeing with Sascoc’s call for this to happen.

“In addition to the National  Sport and Recreation Act 110 of 1998 you seem to selectively quote from, to show that I do not have the power to intervene, you are kindly reminded that as a sovereign country in which I am the Minister responsible for Sport, Arts and Culture, there is a raft of laws at my disposal, that empower me to deal effectively with recalcitrant behaviour within my portfolio,” Mthethwa stated.

The four main outcomes Mthethwa wants to see, according to his letter, are the full implementation of the Nicholson Commission recommendations, the appointment of a new, stable Board, effective transformation and the correct handling of the Fundudzi Forensic Report.

Apart from telling Mthethwa he did not have the power to force the Board to step down, CSA also said they viewed his intervention as government interference which probably “jeopardises CSA’s continued membership of the ICC”.

The bad news for CSA and Williams is that Mthethwa has the power to no longer recognise them as a national federation, thereby making their membership of the International Cricket Council moot in any case.

Cricket South Africa delegates Beresford Williams, the acting president, and Welsh Gwaza, the company secretary, met their match on Tuesday when they were instructed to leave the virtual meeting with parliament’s sports portfolio committee because they have both been implicated in the Fundudzi Forensic Report, and there could be similarly bad news for former president Chris Nenzani and the remainder of the Board, including those who have already jumped ship.

CSA met with the portfolio committee on Tuesday to discuss the findings of the complete Fundudzi Report, which had been given to the parliamentarians on Friday, although it was patently obvious that very few of the politicians had actually bothered to read the report.

A summary of the report has already accused Williams of a conflict of interest in a R5 million loan from CSA to the Western Province Cricket Association, of which he was the former president. Gwaza was alleged to have misled the Board in the multi-million rand deal with Global Sports Commerce, assuring them due diligence had been done on the company and they had a bank guarantee, neither of which was true.

But new revelations emerged on Tuesday, including a potential bombshell that Nenzani had under-reported to the Board the size of a grant from the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture.

Marius Schoeman, the independent director who chairs the audit and risk committee and led CSA’s presentation on Tuesday, said “We would like to understand why Mr Nenzani gave us a different number, there is a discrepancy because the honourable MP has given a higher number for the grants here today”.

It also emerged that fired former chief executive Thabang Moroe had been appointed without meeting the minimum requirements for the vital post, as Schoeman acknowledged. The makers of that decision by the Board included Williams, Nenzani and already-departed directors such as Louis von Zeuner, Mohamed Iqbal Khan, Dawn Mokhobo and Thando Ganda.

“It is correct that the CEO was appointed without meeting the minimum requirements,” Schoeman, who was elected to the board last year, conceded.

Partly because of how poorly prepared the sports portfolio committee were to interrogate CSA, the federation seemed to have mended some fences with the parliamentarians, especially with their willingness to engage the services of Sascoc in an advisory capacity as they look to implement the full recommendations of the Nicholson Commission and restructure the composition of their Board to ensure there is not as much crossover between it and the Members Council.

Cricket South Africa independent director Dr Eugenia Kula-Ameyaw has already caused controversy with her access to the organisation’s funds and now it has emerged that her Social Justice and Nation-Building initiative launched with much fanfare and cost on August 28 is yet to get off the ground.

Kula-Ameyaw, who was appointed – not elected – as a temporary, non-executive independent director in May, placed an advertisement in a Sunday newspaper without Board nor executive approval, costing the cash-strapped organisation R521 000.

While she seems to have escaped any censure for that impropriety, she was reported to the Board’s Social and Ethics Committee last month for tweets that were critical of sponsors Momentum.

Kula-Ameyaw has been the driving force behind SJN, an independent complaints system headed by ombudsman Advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza that was meant to ensure transformation programmes are impactful and would also be in charge of a restoration fund for those previously discriminated against. Nine ambassadors, all high-profile former players, were also appointed.

But according to one of the ambassadors, who did not want to be named, they are still in the dark as to what SJN is meant to do and what their role in the initiative will be.

“We’ve had one Zoom meeting in which we were introduced to Dr Eugenia Kula-Ameyaw and the advocate but it has not been pinpointed exactly what we are meant to do. The meeting lasted about 30 minutes and we were confused because we all want to know what our roles are. This was in the first week of September and they said they would get back to us.

“But we are still in limbo. We think they will ask us how we work out who has been discriminated against, but I guess it’s still early days,” the ambassador told The Citizen.

A request was sent to CSA on October 7 for an update on the SJN initiative’s progress. But despite being promised a response by noon the following day, and then by the end of last week, CSA have still not provided any update.

CSA did respond to a question on Kula-Ameyaw’s social media indiscretion and whether the Board’s Social and Ethics committee were going to take action by saying, “The matter is receiving the necessary attention from our Social and Ethics Committee. Once all internal processes have been followed and completed, the appropriate steps will be taken.”

Despite being one of the newest directors on the board, Kula-Ameyaw was tipped to become the lead independent director when elections are held at the AGM on December 5, but her recent slip-ups may well cause the Members Council to pause for thought about electing her.