Ken Borland

Cricket South Africa (CSA) chief executive Haroon Lorgat said on Thursday that he objected to sections of the media finding him guilty without trial after the International Cricket Council (ICC) announced that they had exonerated him of any wrongdoing surrounding the media statement criticising ICC governance made last October by their former legal advisor David Becker.

An independent adjudicator commissioned by the ICC cleared Lorgat of knowing about the Becker media statement and its contents prior to its initial distribution; of being

involved in the preparation of the statement; or of attempting to persuade a number of different journalists to delay or withdraw the Becker story by offering to do something for them in return, allegedly bribing and eventually threatening the journalists.

“Being exonerated is no surprise to me because I knew exactly what I had done and what I had not done, and I knew that I would not fail myself nor cricket in South Africa,” Lorgat told a news conference at the Wanderers on Thursday.

“But I am gravely disappointed that I was found guilty in the media and I seriously expect an apology and then we can move on. A lot of things were said about me even before the investigation began.

“It’s an opportunity for the media to reflect on how fairly and accurately they have done their job. I call on the media to report fairly on Cricket South Africa, some people just use a sledgehammer and it brings their own organisations into disrepute. The media ought to be accountable for what they write, just like I am accountable for what I do,” Lorgat continued.

While Lorgat did not want to ascribe the investigation to the machinations surrounding the so-called takeover of the ICC by the ‘Big Three’, he confirmed that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) had been one of the parties that offered to drop the charges during the debate over the changes in the structure of world cricket’s governing body.

“The CSA president, Chris Nenzani, was involved in those talks and he has confirmed that offers to drop the investigation were made at the time of the ICC revamp discussions. We made it very clear though that there would be no deals, but it showed that the BCCI and many other board members had already moved on because they knew what the outcome of the investigation would be. Thankfully we continued with it, however, because now my name has been cleared,” Lorgat said.

Lorgat is now free to involve himself fully in all ICC business and dealings with the BCCI, but he said his suspension from these activities had not particularly affected CSA.

“I don’t believe that it affected South African cricket to a great extent. I was involved in many discussions on the sidelines and I missed just one chief executives’ meeting, but I was in Dubai at the time and was discussing all the issues outside the meeting,” Lorgat said.

Nenzani said in the CSA statement released earlier on Thursday that the board had maintained the utmost confidence in Lorgat throughout the investigation.

“As we expected, all the allegations have been dismissed and the board would like to reiterate its full trust and confidence in Mr. Lorgat as its chief executive. To date the board has been satisfied and indeed impressed with the progress made under his leadership.

“It is also clear that allegations and insinuations made against Mr. Lorgat by certain journalists were unprofessional and do not fall within the bounds of fair or justifiable comment. I hope these individuals or their organisations will now have the courage to issue an apology to both Mr. Lorgat and CSA,” Nenzani said.

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Hopes that Cricket South Africa’s new board will steer the sport’s administration away from the scandals of the Gerald Majola era look set to be dashed because the new dispensation seems to be merely setting up a fresh cabal that includes several fierce supporters of the former chief executive.

The new regime at CSA will revolve around lead independent director Norman Arendse and the current board is dominated by his supporters.

The new board is made up of people like Andy O’Connor, who was Majola’s right-hand man, and Peter Cyster, another strong supporter of the central figure in the bonus scandal. The new directors come from provinces like Griqualand West, Easterns, Border and Boland.

The new CSA non-independent directors, elected on February 2, are president Chris Nenzani (Border), vice-president Cyster (Boland), O’Connor (Easterns), Beresford Williams (WP), Graeme Sauls (EP), Fa-eez Jaffar (KZN) and Rihan Richards (GW).

When the nominations committee initially recommended Arendse for one of the independent directorships, the CSA board were vehemently opposed to his appointment. Now, less than four months later, that same board has voted Arendse as the lead independent director and it seems favours were offered to secure his appointment.

Cyster was previously totally opposed to Arendse but is believed to have voted for him and is now the vice-president. Graeme Sauls, who has been on the board for just three months and has been an anonymous figure, is president of Eastern Province who were fierce opponents of Arendse. But they too are believed to have gone for him and Sauls now has a seat on the board of directors. Richards is another provincial president who has only been on the board for a short, anonymous while and is now a director.

Those smaller provinces have recently been getting more international games and there is the fear that Nenzani’s new board will just be puppets run by Arendse.

And neither government nor Sascoc are likely to interfere in CSA’s return to gravy-train administration, despite both of them signing the Nicholson Commission’s findings and agreeing to help implement all of the retired judge’s recommendations.

While sports minister Fikile Mbalula can’t really flex his muscles anymore in the wake of backing the wrong horse at Mangaung, there is perhaps a more sinister reason why Sascoc have ditched their original support for Nicholson’s recommendations and backed Arendse in his bid to be considered as an independent director despite the fact that he is an honorary life president of Western Province cricket.

Arendse can go to Western Province board meetings and vote, but he said he does not participate. But anyone who is aware of Arendse’s domineering personality will find that hard to believe. When he was the president of CSA between 2007 and 2008 he tried to do the jobs of both the CEO and the convenor of selectors. Merely observing is not this man’s style.

The same rule that stated independent directors could not have been involved in cricket for three years counted against SK Reddy from KZN, but for Arendse it’s okay.

Sascoc’s about-turn perhaps has its roots in an allegation of attempted bribery Arendse made against their president, Gideon Sam, that was revealed a year ago.

Arendse alleged that while he was chairing the adjudication committee for a R7-billion state tender in 2008 he was offered an “open chequebook” bribe by an individual claiming to represent Cash Paymaster Services (CPS).
Arendse refused to confirm or deny the identity of the inducer, but the Mail & Guardian said Arendse named Sam when he recorded the incident.   http://amabhungane.co.za/article/2012-02-24-name-your-price-bribe-offer-for-r7billion-rand-tender

The tender is now the subject of court action by one of the bidders who failed to win the contract, but it could be telling that Advocate Arendse never reported the attempted bribe to the police, as required by South African law.

The franchises are almost bankrupt and always begging for money, which is how CSA keep them under control. CSA are always pleading poverty, but their income from broadcast rights runs into 10 figures every four years. Apparently, independent directors at some franchises have refused to sign the annual reports because technically the franchise is insolvent.

The best people for the jobs are certainly not being elected at CSA, even though the Companies Act states quite clearly that directors must always act in the best interests of the company and not themselves. The same people who ignored the Companies Act in allowing Majola his free reign are ignoring the same law again.

Both Archie Pretorius of North-West, the chief forensic auditor for one of the leading mining houses, and chartered accountant Vincent Sinovich, who were coincidentally two of the minority who were critical of Majola, have been sidelined as directors.

Cyster, a dentist, is now the non-independent director who sits on the finance committee.

And there could be further trouble ahead for CSA when it comes to appointing their new CEO to replace Jacques Faul.

Former International Cricket Council CEO and Proteas selection convenor Haroon Lorgat is the overwhelming favourite for the post, but that could be disastrous for South Africa’s standing in international cricket politics.

Reports from India make it clear that the Board of Control For Cricket in India will be reconsidering the special relationship between the two countries should Lorgat be appointed.

The former ICC CEO was the chief nemesis for the BCCI when it came to furthering their agenda at the global level and the way leading Indian administrators have openly taken the credit for Lorgat’s contract not being renewed suggests the same bad reaction will afflict the alliance between them and South Africa.

Bisho schoolteacher Chris Nenzani became South African cricket’s premier administrator at the weekend, promising a new era for the game as he was elected president and chairman of Cricket South Africa’s board of directors.

Nenzani was the winner of a two-horse race with Western Province’s Beresford Williams and was an optimistic man as he faced a media contingent not yet convinced that Cricket South Africa has really changed its ways.

“We have come from a very difficult period and if you had asked me a year ago if there was a crisis, I would have said ‘Yes’.”

“But we have now gone beyond those trying times and we are looking forward to a very promising future. We will be checking our governance structure to ensure we regain public confidence and we must remember that the role of the administration is to remain in the background while the players are at the forefront,” Nenzani, the president of the Border Cricket Board, said after his election at the Wanderers.

While Nenzani was a popular choice and is a likeable man who distanced himself from fired chief executive Gerald Majola early on in the bonus scandal, CSA’s annual general meeting was notable for the number of administrators who have somehow survived their disgraceful actions – and lack of action – while the game was being looted and embarrassed in this country.

Andy O’Connor, the Easterns president, was at the forefront of the pro-Majola lobby and quite vicious in his criticism of the media over the last couple of years, and yet his name is in the list of seven non-independent directors who will run cricket for the next year alongside five independent appointees.

Northerns president Vincent Sinovich, Free State’s Leon Crawley and North-West’s Archie Pretorius were in the minority in terms of CSA board members who insisted that Majola should face independent investigation and their reward has been to be cast into the relative wilderness.

Norman Arendse, the former president of CSA who then tried to do the jobs of the chief executive and convenor of selectors, is one of the independent directors, in accordance with the recommendation of the nominations’ committee, which just happened to be dominated by people from his home city, Cape Town.

The other independent directors are Wesizwe Platinum’s Dawn Mokhobo, Constitutional Court trustee Vusi Pikoli, Absa’s Louis von Zeuner and Old Mutual chief operating officer Mohamed Iqbal Khan, while the other CSA nominations are Nenzani, vice-president Peter Cyster of Boland, Graeme Sauls (EP), Faeez Jaffar (KZN) and Rihan Richards (GW).

The decision to give the non-independent directors the majority of board places flies in the face of the Nicholson recommendations, but CSA was given the easy way out through the interference of the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee [Sascoc], which insisted that the game should be run by “sports people”.

Nenzani admitted that one of the first tasks of the new board would be to reassure the public that it is not lapsing into the bad old ways that forced Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula to institute the Nicholson Inquiry in the first place.

“I wouldn’t say we have backtracked. My understanding is that our restructuring is not just about the composition of the board. As members of Sascoc, we are committed to continuing our engagement with them. We have to get the right balance between independent directors and those with cricketing knowledge,” Nenzani said.

Outgoing acting president Willie Basson described the situation as being “stranded” between Sascoc and the wishes of Mbalula and Judge Nicholson.

“CSA has engaged with the Nicholson process in good faith but in the end found itself stranded between powerful forces and seriously conflicting objectives. Being left stranded between the high aspirations of the Memorandum of Agreement with the minister and Sascoc’s requirements was both uncomfortable and disappointing,” Basson said.

Unfortunately Nenzani sounded like the National Party politicians of old who claimed they willingly ushered the country into democracy when he defended the continued presence of Majola sympathisers on the board by saying: “These are the same people who have taken this process to where we are now, they took it upon themselves to undo what made the public uncomfortable.”

Ah, Mr Nenzani, the CSA board had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into the Nicholson Inquiry and it was only thanks to the perseverance of the sports minister and Basson, who the board tried to get rid of, that there has been any reform at all.

The fact that the AGM took place half-an-hour after the start of play on the second day of the Test shows that many of the administrators seemingly have little interest in the actual game. The gravy bowl is perhaps their prime focus and it seems the same old snouts are in it.

http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2013-02-04-csa-stranded-between-sascoc-and-the-wishes-of-mbalula-and-judge-nicholson/#.UZvqyaI3A6w

Chris Nenzani was elected as the new president and chairman of the board of directors on Saturday as Cricket South Africa deemed themselves to have emerged from the bonus scandal crisis.

“We have come from a very difficult period and if you had asked me a year ago if there was a crisis, I would have said ‘Yes’.

“But we have now gone beyond those trying times and we are looking forward to a very promising future. We will be checking our governance structure to ensure we regain public confidence and we must remember that the role of the administration is to remain in the background while the players are at the forefront,” schoolteacher Nenzani, the president of the Border Cricket Board, told media after his election at the Wanderers on Saturday.

The annual general meeting was closed to the media, but Nenzani’s only challenger for the post was believed to be Western Province’s Beresford Williams.

Williams is one of the seven non-independent directors elected on to the board, alongside Nenzani, vice-president Peter Cyster (Boland), Andy O’Connor (Easterns), Graeme Sauls (EP), Faeez Jaffar (KZN) and Rihan Richards (GW).

Five independent directors – controversial former CSA president Advocate Norman Arendse, Wesizwe Platinum’s Dawn Mokhobo, Constitutional Court trustee Vusi Pikoli, Absa’s Louis von Zeuner and Old Mutual chief operating officer Mohamed Iqbal Khan – will make up the remainder of the new board.

Non-independent directors will outnumber independents 7-5, but Nenzani said it was unfair for this to be classified as CSA backtracking on its agreements to implement the recommendations of the Nicholson Inquiry into their corporate governance after their former chief executive, Gerald Majola, was implicated in receiving improper bonus payments.

“I wouldn’t say we have backtracked. My understanding is that our restructuring is not just about the composition of the board. As members of Sascoc [the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee], we are committed to continuing our engagement with them. We have to get the right balance between independent directors and those with cricketing knowledge,” Nenzani said.

Acting president Willie Basson, in his outgoing address, said “the incoming board will be faced with a major challenge to comply with Sascoc’s requirement of increasing the non-independent directors on the board to nine representing the geopolitical regions.

“CSA has engaged with the Nicholson process in good faith but in the end found itself stranded between powerful forces and seriously conflicting objectives. Being left stranded between the high aspirations of the Memorandum of Agreement with the Minister [of Sport Fikile Mbalula] and Sascoc’s requirements was both uncomfortable and disappointing.”