What will Nathi Mthethwa do?
TELFORD VICE | Cape Town
CSA’s members council has refused to recognise the interim board put in place by government. But the interim board has hit back, damning the members council as “obstructionist”. Never has the struggle for control of the game in the country been as fraught, nor as farcical.
The stance of the members council — CSA’s highest authority — could prompt more direct action from the authorities, which might lead CSA to complain to the ICC about interference and lead to South Africa being suspended.
That was Zimbabwe’s fate in July last year after its government replaced the board. ICC funding was cut off and the national teams were barred from playing at the highest level. The sanction was lifted three months later.
South Africa’s situation is sure to be a hot topic at the ICC meetings next week, but a firm decision then is unlikely — meaning England’s tour starting later this month would seem to remain on the cards.
Even so, South Africa’s government has the power to put CSA under administration. That would mean the withdrawal of the federation’s right to call its teams representative, which would put the status of its fixtures this season in jeopardy.
Currently, South Africa are due to play England in three matches in each of the white-ball formats from November 27 to December 9, followed by two Tests against Sri Lanka from December 26 to January 7. Australia are scheduled to visit in February and March for three more Tests, and Pakistan for three ODIs and three T20s, ending in April. No details of the latter two tours have been announced.
All of which might come to nought in the wake of a CSA release on Thursday that said the members council would “not be appointing the interim board” which sports minister Nathi Mthethwa appointed on October 30 in the wake of years of compelling evidence that CSA had dragged the game into disrepute in financial and governance terms.
The members council, the release said, had “written to the minister to raise material concerns about the proposed interim board” about “several unresolved issues” including “overstepping and disregarding agreed upon duties, responsibilities and lines of accountability; and ultimately, a breakdown in the relationship between the members council and the propose [sic] interim board”.
The release railed against “a conflict of interest relating to a proposed member of the interim board; opposition to outlined roles, responsibilities and reporting lines as outlined in the MOI [memorandum of incorporation]; unprofessional conduct; non-cooperation; and misalignment between the members council and the interim board” which “remained contrary to the arrangements agreed to by the parties”.
The interim board was named in the aftermath of all 10 members of the elected board being convinced to resign en masse, which they did on October 25 and 26 — just in time to beat Mthethwa’s deadline of October 27 for CSA to tell him why he shouldn’t intervene in their affairs.
Three days later Mthethwa named the new board. It was appointed for three months, at least, and would be led by Zak Yacoob, a former judge on the bench of the Constitutional Court, the highest court in the land. Among its nine members were former ICC and CSA chief executive Haroon Lorgat, Omphile Ramela, until then the president of the South African Cricketers’ Association, and André Odendaal, a former chief executive of the Western Province Cricket Association. It seemed a page was being turned towards a brighter future.
But a loophole had been left: the new board would report to the members council. The members council appears to be trying to tighten that loophole into a noose around the board’s neck. And why wouldn’t it? Five of the directors who resigned also sit on the members council, and still do.
A release from the interim board on Thursday said a letter to it from the members council dated Monday raised concerns over “the way in which the board was constituted and about conflicts of interest in relation to one interim board member, Mr. Haroon Lorgat. Both these matters had been addressed at a meeting between the board, the members council and … Mthethwa … on Sunday. The board believed the matters were settled.”
Most cricketminded South Africans could have told the board they should have known better than that. Questions over Lorgat’s appointment were inevitable considering he was CSA’s chief executive during the first two years covered by a forensic investigation into the organisation’s multiple problems. But if the members council wasn’t happy with Lorgat’s involvement why didn’t it say so when he was named, or reject the answers it received on Sunday?
“Regrettably, by refusing to confirm our mandate, the members council has shown itself unwilling to co-operate with this independent board,” the interim board release said. “We are of the view that the members council has acted in bad faith and contrary to the consensus it reached with … Mthethwa at the end of October. In its communication, the members council requested the board ‘to cease engagement with or participation in the CSA operations, as well as cease to engage in any forum as representatives of CSA’.
“The failures of corporate governance within [CSA] are well-known and the cricket-loving public has watched [CSA] lurch from crisis to crisis. The current situation is untenable and we are thus dismayed to be in receipt of what we can only describe as an obstructionist, legalistic letter from the members council while we have tried to put structures in place and hold individuals within CSA to account. We are of the view that the conduct of the members council is an attempt to stymie the work of our board.”
At least they got that right.
First published by Cricbuzz.
Bulletproof Truth 