“The interim board is disappointed that at this critical juncture for South African cricket, the members council has chosen to preserve the untenable status quo.” – CSA
Telford Vice | Cape Town
NOT for the first time, the majority of CSA’s members council has proved itself to be South African cricket’s worst enemy. And re-opened the door to intervention by a government that hitherto has been patient enough to grant the council opportunities to mend its errant ways.
But push may come to shove in the wake of a meeting on Saturday, when the members council rejected a proposal to bring CSA’s governance structures in line with modern standards. That could prompt sports minister Nathi Mthethwa to cut CSA’s funding and withdraw recognition of its teams as national representatives.
This is nothing new for South Africa’s long-suffering cricket aficionados. It’s been nine years since retired judge Chris Nicholson, in his report following his investigation into USD573,000 losing its way through CSA’s governance committees, recommended that the board be restructured to include a majority of independent directors and be chaired by an independent. CSA has since found ways to weasel out of implementing that plan — not least because the majority of board members must, as per CSA’s current memorandum of incorporation (MOI), be drawn from the ranks of the members council, which as CSA’s highest authority is superior even to the board. The council is comprised of the leaders of CSA’s 14 provincial affiliates and associates. They are elected officials who too often do not have the skills or experience required to run an enterprise as dynamic and high-profile as a national board. Yet the buck stops with them. Little wonder CSA has lurched from one administrative, financial or governance crisis to the next for years on end. It is a chronically dysfunctional organisation.
The members council had the chance to do their duty to change that narrative when they were asked to agree to change the MOI to make the board CSA’s ultimate authority, to accept a board comprised of seven independent and four non-independent — or council members — as directors, and to agree that the board should be chaired by an independent director. They refused on Tuesday and again on Saturday. A reason the council has trotted out for its recalcitrance is that the new structure would mean the game is not run by enough cricket people — this even as damning evidence mounts that cricket people in high positions have been good for little else but running the game into the ground. CSA is millions of rand in debt, is wading through disciplinary procedures against suspended senior executives, is shedding jobs, and is struggling to secure sponsors. The game is in danger of toppling over its own inept leadership.
But the members council clings on. It can do so because the same faulty MOI that allows it to sit on the board and the council simultaneously also puts it in control of CSA. Nobody is watching the detectives. Since November, CSA has had an interim board that was assembled with Mthethwa’s help and given a mandate to clean up the game. That required the resignation of the elected board, which refused to jump without a push. The push duly came, and the board went. But there has been no getting rid of largely the same people from the members council. So, essentially, nothing has changed.
It fell to the interim board to try to persuade the turkeys of the members council to vote for the Christmas that would mean the diminishing of their authority. Those attempts foundered on Saturday, when eight of the 14 members voted against adopting the recommendations. A release issued by CSA’s corporate communications office was vinegary with disapproval: “This [a majority of independent directors] is a well-established governance principle, both in South Africa and internationally. It was also supported by advice given to the interim board and members council by renowned company law and governance expert Michael Katz …
“In the interests of transparency and in the public interest we will be requesting the members council to disclose which members voted for and against the well-established principle of a majority of independent directors. This is integral to good governance and to the restoration of the reputation of cricket in South Africa and internationally, and in order to address historic governance failures which have plagued cricket in South Africa.”
Almost five hours after that landed, CSA issued a release on behalf of the members council: “The majority of the affiliates rejected the proposals that were advanced by the interim board, specifically on areas that were non-negotiables. The affiliates felt that the Interim board was imposing certain decisions on the members council without room for further exploration.” Unhelpfully, the council did not specify the “non-negotiables” it raised.
Cricbuzz has learnt that Gauteng, North West, South Western Districts, Western Province and Easterns were in favour of the new deal and that Northern Cape — headed by Rihan Richards, the acting president of the members council — favoured an equal split of independent and non-independent directors. That leaves Boland, Northerns, Free State, Border, Eastern Province, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo and Mpumalanga: the execrable eight.
The other side of the equation is that good independent directors are hard to find in South Africa, which CSA has discovered for itself in the past year. Thabang Moroe’s appointment as chief executive was championed by the independent board members, as was Kugandrie Govender’s to the same position in an acting capacity. Moroe has since been fired and Govender suspended. It was an independent board member’s decision not to release to the public a forensic report into CSA’s ills. More independents don’t guarantee better administration, but poor administration is assured if not enough of them are involved in decision-making.
“The interim board is disappointed that at this critical juncture for South African cricket, the members council has chosen to preserve the untenable status quo,” CSA’s first release said. “Cricket in South Africa is a national good and in doing so, the members council has not only disappointed the interim board, the South African cricketing community but also the South African people at large.”
Unsurprisingly, the council didn’t see matters that way: “The assertion that the members council has disappointed the cricket community is unfair and unfortunate. The members council had consulted with its affiliates and obtained a mandate, which was duly communicated to the interim board. The members council cannot deviate from the mandate of the constituency it serves. That would be irresponsible and dereliction of its responsibilities.”
The members council has been failing, maybe wilfully, for years. The interim board has, not for want of intent and effort, also failed. Over to you, Mr Mthethwa.
First published by Cricbuzz.
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