Ken Borland

Judging by the summary of the Fundudzi Forensic Report released by Cricket South Africa on Monday, it would seem dismissed CEO Thabang Moroe failed “to act with the degree of care, skill and diligence that may reasonably be expected” on an almost daily basis and the report exposes just how shambolic the running of the game had become under his watch and that of the Board.

The Fundudzi Report was commissioned, according to non-independent director John Mogodi in his presentation on Monday, to “investigate various governance issues, lapses in CSA controls and governance oversights” between January 2016 and December 2019. And it uncovered an extensive list of actions and inactions that justified disciplinary measures against Moroe.

But certain other staff members, most notably former chief operating officer Naasei Appiah, who was dismissed in mid-August, are also implicated in misgovernance and the Board itself is accused of dereliction of their fiduciary duties.

Moroe, however, is mentioned a dozen times: for contravening the CSA Code of Conduct when he revoked five journalists’ media accreditation, his failure to ensure the South African Cricketers’ Association were paid their image rights timeously which amounted to treating the players’ union with disdain and causing CSA to suffer reputational damage; several instances where he failed to follow procurement protocols and did not act in the best interests of CSA; misleading the Board when it came to exercising their step-in rights with the Western Province Cricket Association, and in failing to ensure due diligence was done in signing Global Sports Commerce for the Mzansi Super League; excessive credit card expenditure and the irregular appointment of a consultant who was not qualified for the post as head of human resources.

The fact that the CSA Board were so easily misled by Moroe and others will tickle those who have long stated that many of the directors are not fit for office.

Former independent director Mohamed Iqbal Khan and current acting president Beresford Williams were both accused of contravening the Companies Act due to a conflict of interest surrounding FinCom’s decision to make loans to the Western Province Cricket Association.

The Board also approved the agreement with GSC despite never being shown the due diligence report they had previously insisted on and GSC’s failure to provide a bank guarantee. Only 8% of the R169 million the Board has approved in loans to their affiliates for stadium upgrades has been paid back since May 2017, with several of the provincial presidents that benefit from the loans sitting on the CSA Board.

Fundudzi also found that CSA have had no effective internal audit unit for the last four years and the extension of Khan and Dawn Mokhobo’s terms as independent directors last year contravened their own Memorandum of Incorporation.

Mogodi said CSA’s lawyers, Bowmans Gilfillan, had recommended disciplinary processes against other employees of CSA and that although it was still early days in terms of those investigations, “we have already taken action on many findings and the Board are determined to act without fear or favour. We will not tolerate fraud, corruption or mismanagement”.

Fundudzi recommended criminal charges be laid in respect of the Service Provider X deal which saw Moroe and Appiah, without following the correct procurement processes, approve payment of nearly R3.5 million for services that have not been delivered.

The Sharks may have enjoyed an impressive pre-season tour to France while the Southern Kings, their opening opponents in SuperRugby this weekend, endured shambolic preparation, but the KwaZulu-Natal side’s director of rugby, Gary Gold, has warned that the Eastern Cape team should not be taken for granted, especially with Rassie Erasmus consulting for them.

Erasmus and his mobi-unit of top specialists were in Port Elizabeth in January to help Kings coach Deon Davids fast-track their preparations and the word from their camp is that they feel ready to compete. The Sharks will be the first team to test that readiness and Gold said they would be cautious.

“It’s exactly the same situation we had with the Cheetahs last year in our first game, so we do not take the Southern Kings lightly as a team. Deon Davids is a good coach and he would have got great help from Rassie and the mobi-unit. And they’ll be desperate to prove their detractors wrong.

“We have to make sure we don’t slip up like we did against the Cheetahs last year. We’re just trying to stay away from expectations and focus on what we do well. The two games in France have shown us how far we’ve come in certain areas. We had a very clear strategy in our pre-season in terms of how we prepared: We really put time and energy into four or five areas which we hope will have the most effect on the game,” Gold told The Citizen.

The Sharks beat Toulon 29-21 and Toulouse 31-17, but Gold said the results were only of secondary importance to how they played and he was very satisfied with their performance. With the time now available before their first SuperRugby game on Saturday, they will brush up on the areas that have not received as much attention.

“It’s not about the results but the performance and I was very satisfied with the things we worked on, we got reward for those, we’ll bank those, but now it’s time to sharpen the pencil. It’s now time to focus on other areas and we know that if we don’t put time and energy into those then we’ll come a cropper, so those areas will develop.

“We scored five tries and three tries in the two games, so I’m happy with that. Toulon could only score through driving mauls against us, three times, but we hadn’t worked on that yet.

“People ask how we want to play, well, first and foremost we want to win and the foundation for winning is a solid defence. That’s one of the areas where I feel we’ve made good progress, it was a helluva lot more consistent. Defence is where a team shows its camaraderie, whether they’re willing to fight for each other. As a coaching staff, we’re very excited because we’ve put our faith in this young group and they’ve repaid us,” Gold said.