Eugenia Kula-Ameyaw – Bulletproof Truth

Toxic inaccuracy blights SJN hearings

“It will no doubt be a painful process for those speaking about their experiences, and it may be an uncomfortable one for those against whom allegations are made.” – Lawson Naidoo, CSA board chair

Telford Vice | Cape Town

“NOT everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it’s faced.” James Baldwin isn’t often quoted in a cricket context. But the process CSA started last year doesn’t focus on cricket often enough.

Dumisa Ntsebeza, the senior advocate who serves as the ombud of CSA’s Social Justice and Nation-Building (SJN) project, used Baldwin’s words to frame what the project hopes to have achieved by July 23, when the hearings that started on Monday are scheduled to end. CSA expects a report, including recommendations, by September 30.

Ntsebeza said 58 written submissions had been received; 11 from what he called “scene setters”, 23 from “players past and present”, and 24 from “cricket unions and other interested organisations”. Affidavits have been required by those who have given written testimony, while oral submissions would be made under oath.

But other aspects of the hearings would not stay within a strictly legal framework, as Ntsebeza explained: “The SJN proceedings are not a criminal inquiry, and as a result I will use the civil standard of proof in making my findings. I will make findings based on a balance of probabilities, provided that where a factual dispute cannot be resolved without cross examination, I may either allow cross examination, limited cross examination, or record the factual dispute without resolving it.”

The potential for conflict was made clear in an address by CSA chair Lawson Naidoo: “It will no doubt be a painful process for those speaking openly and publicly about their experiences, and it may be an awkward and uncomfortable one for those against whom allegations are made. Despite this, it is a necessary process if we are to heal and maximise our future potential. As the final terms of reference make clear, there is a need to ensure fairness for all participants — both those who make allegations and those against whom allegations are made. For this reason, those against whom allegations are made will be given notice by the ombudsman’s office and will have an opportunity to respond to the allegations made against them.”

Some of that unease was apparent in May, when the hearings were originally due to start. One reason they were postponed was that Ntsebeza was busy at the African Human Rights Court in Tanzania. But another was that problems with the envisaged process were highlighted by, among others, David Becker, a lawyer who represents Graeme Smith and CSA’s anti-corruption head, Louis Cole.

Smith’s appointment as CSA’s director of cricket is a bone of contention in black and brown circles in the game, while only one of the seven players punished for their roles in a failed fixing plot during the 2015 franchise T20 competition was white. Some of those players have since featured in the media proclaiming their innocence, have previously their guilt, and complained about the way their cases were dealt with. Becker, who had led successful ICC fixing investigations, assisted CSA as an external independent lawyer.

The SJN was established in the wake of Lungi Ngidi, in answer to a question during an online press conference on July 6 last year, saying South Africa’s players had and would address issues of racial injustice. That prompted a backlash from white former players against Ngidi’s stance — and a statement, released on July 14, from 31 former players and five current coaches, all of them black or brown, alleging they had been victims of racist abuse in South African cricket since unity was achieved at administrative level in 1991.

South African cricket is part what remains a deeply racist society, even though apartheid was defeated at the polls in April 1994. So there is no question the game was riddled with unfairness when racism was the law of the land. Cricket is still stuck with that legacy. For instance, only one of the country’s 13 grounds that have staged international matches since re-admission in 1991 is not in a historically white area.

Attitudes do not change easily given those concrete realities. So CSA’s efforts to correct the imbalance are often disapproved of by whites who, blind to their own undoubted and unearned privilege, see these attempts as the unnecessary politicisation of a game they politicised in the first place.

The SJN, then, is an important opportunity to move the conversation forward in valuable ways. So it was disappointing that the first person called to give testimony on Monday wasn’t someone on that page. Instead, Eugenia Kula-Ameyaw took the stand and made, under oath, toxically inaccurate statements. One was that the South African Cricketers’ Association paid players’ salaries, and that white players earned more than others. Both are blatantly untrue.

Kula-Ameyaw’s submission achieved little except to undermine the SJN’s credibility. Worryingly, her unexplained assertions went unchallenged, which will no doubt leave those implicated to clean up the mess she has made using, perhaps, legal action. The process might now have to go backwards to undo damage before it can make progress.

If Kula-Ameyaw’s name sounds familiar, it’s because she was part of the CSA board that performed dismally enough to be persuaded to resign en masse in October. Before that happened she engineered the placing, without proper approval, of a newspaper advertisement that cost CSA the equivalent of more than USD36,000. She was under investigation by CSA’s social and ethics committee because it was feared that some of her social media posts could have put her in breach of the directors’ charter. CSA has yet to reveal the outcome of that probe.

Maybe the puzzle of why such a blighted figure was called as the SJN’s first witness is solved by the fact that she was instrumental in establishing the project and in Ntsebeza’s appointment as the ombud.

In cricket terms, what happened on Monday was the captain of a team called SJN taking a look at an under-prepared neon greentop and choosing to bat first, anyway. An hour in, they’re 17/4. Good luck.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Racism hearings loom, as do credibility questions

“There is something out there that needs to be confronted. This country needs to deal very purposefully with the subject of transformation.” – Dumisa Ntsebeza, CSA social justice ombud

Telford Vice | Cape Town

CSA’s social justice and nation-building (SJN) project will begin hearings on Monday, marking a milestone for conversations about vexed questions of race and racism in South African cricket *. But the prominence afforded tarnished figures or those who have tenuous connections to the game could undermine the credibility of the process. Another focus will be on what happens when serious allegations are made against prominent people.

“We’ve been working flat out, and we’ll still be working,” Dumisa Ntsebeza, a senior advocate, told an online press conference on Thursday about the efforts made since he took up his appointment as SJN ombud on April 6. “But I can confirm that we are ready to start these hearings. We have lined up people who have agreed to start the ball rolling.”

The first of the people Ntsebeza mentioned was Eugenia Kula-Ameyaw, who left cricket under a cloud in October. She was an independent member of CSA’s board, which was pushed to resign en masse as part of government’s bid to resolve the incestuous and damaging governance failings that have plagued the game for years.

Kula-Ameyaw, who bills herself as a “transformation and gender expert”, sat on CSA’s board only for five months. But in that time she engineered the questionably authorised publication of a newspaper advertisement that cost CSA the equivalent of USD35,500 and forced CSA to issue an apology for what it called her “unfortunate and unwarranted” social media posts about an outgoing major sponsor. She also prompted the resignation as CSA’s acting chief executive of Jacques Faul — probably the country’s most competent administrator — and managed to tell an online press conference: “I only watch the highlights of cricket, not the whole game. I don’t have time for that.”

Her only tangible positive achievement at CSA was to successfully agitate for the establishment in July last year of the SJN in response to the allegations of racism black and brown former players and coaches said they had experienced since the unification of the game’s disparate racially aligned structures in 1991.

Ntsebeza nevertheless gave Kula-Ameyaw a glowing testimonial: “I can think of no-one more vocal, who has been moving heaven and earth in articulating in their own way what transformation is all about … than Eugenia Kula-Ameyaw. [She] has made bold talk about what transformation is and what it is not, and how transformation should not be construed as merely a mechanism for introducing politics into sport, or to set targets which are not targets but quotas. My experience of her is that she understands those dynamics. She’s able to separate fact from fiction, and she will lay the necessary background to the topic.”

Another of Monday’s appearances will be made by Dumile Mateza, a respected broadcaster and administrator — he has served on the board of Boxing South Africa — who has become a prominent commentator on social and political issues in sport. His input could prove valuable, but he hasn’t had significant close involvement with cricket for years and runs the risk of being dismissed as out of touch with the game’s current realities. Ntsebeza said Mateza’s “perspective of a journalist” would “not only … give a historical view” but “would also inform us”. South Africans will wonder what made the SJN decide against enlisting a journalist who has a fresher and thus more relevant grip on the issues cricket faces.

Ntsebeza said the SJN hoped to hear from players by Wednesday “because this is about them, whether they are active or no longer active. They are people who have stories to tell.” Around 50 submissions had been received in writing, with others delivered verbally. Some of them could create conflict.

“When people are pouring their hearts out, and this is a platform we have created for them to do just that, people are going to be mentioned — perhaps to their detriment,” Ntsebeza said. “Some testimonies may be against the interests of those people. No-one is going to be treated unfairly. When someone has been mentioned in a way that is not favourable they must be able to respond. They should and will be given an opportunity to rebut everything that has been said about them. We believe the process must be fair also for those about whom complaints are going to be made.

“What the law requires is that an opportunity should be extended to anyone who has been prejudiced or would be prejudiced by what is said without being heard. This law is as old as the bible. They must not say they were unfairly treated, so that we can balance what they probably would say are misrepresentations of their motives, or what they did, or are downright lies.”

Theories that racially wronged players would be financially compensated abounded while Kula-Ameyaw was driving the SJN. Was that still on the agenda? “The reparation part of the SJN project had to be suspended, possibly for the future,” Ntsebeza said. “That is yet to come. That is not for this round [of the SJN’s work].”

He was less equivocal about the importance of what the project had set out to do: “There is something out there that needs to be confronted. This country needs to deal very purposefully with the subject of transformation. It’s not just in cricket. If we don’t have this dialogue … then we are adopting a head-in-the-sand attitude. Just because our heads are in the sand doesn’t mean we are not exposed. We [must] deal with issues that are troubling with an aim to healing the wounds of the past and the present. The sooner we do that the better.”

When the reporters present were told they could make appointments to interview Ntsebeza, he said, “I hope there are none today because I am attending an opera at the Market Theatre [in Johannesburg].”

The theatre’s website said Thursday’s performance of “Coloratura — the Virtuosity of Opera” would feature “arias, overtures and intermezzos” exploring “love, betrayal and tragedy”. Ntsebeza should be prepared to hear much more on those themes before cricket’s fat lady sings.

* CSA have since postponed the hearings.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Race ombud faces struggle at stubborn, disunited CSA

“I don’t have a magic wand and I’ve not been mandated to carry a big stick and go after people and get them to do things I said need to be done.” – Dumisa Ntsebeza on the chances of CSA implementing the SJN’s recommendations.

Telford Vice | Cape Town

DUMISA Ntsebeza, the newly appointed ombud of CSA’s Social Justice and Nation-building (SJN) project, has six months to investigate evidence of racism in the 30 years of supposedly unified cricket in South Africa. His work will entail interviewing a wide range of stakeholders, holding public online hearings, and writing a report that will include recommendations.

All that? In six months? And while having to navigate the culture of an organisation that has a poor record for implementing independent recommendations, and is so wracked by division that it is at odds with itself on whether the players should take a knee before games? Good thing Ntsebeza is among the country’s most senior advocates: he served on the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which from 1996 to 2003 aimed to give South Africans restorative justice in the wake of apartheid.

“I will adjudicate all complaints that I will have received, which, by and large and overall, relate to unfair discrimination in cricket,” Ntsebeza told an online press conference on Thursday. That he had been given only six months to do so engendered “a sense of urgency”, he said. But he was hopeful of being granted more time should it be needed. He said he wanted to speak to “former players, current players, SACA [the South African Cricketers’ Association], administrators, employees, educators, sponsors, the media and government”, and that he planned to start in the first week of May. He would like to see a transformation conference organised for July to coincide with CSA’s 30th anniversary.

Ntsebeza was prepared to talk to those who didn’t think he had anything to investigate: “There are many people out there who may feel that there is nothing wrong with cricket, either as a sporting good or as a game in South Africa, that has to be transformed. Therefore all attempts at seeking to over-analyse what is happening in cricket might be [seen as] interference in an aspect which already has taken significant strides in the direction of transformation.

“I want to speak to those who feel that transformation might be just one form of interference. Some may even go so far as to say it’s one form of bringing politics into sport. But I’m interested to hear those voices, because they are going to shape my recommendations.”

The establishment of the SJN was prompted by a statement released on July 14 last year in which 31 black and brown former players and coaches said they had been victims of racist treatment and attitudes during their time in the game after apartheid. Eugenia Kula-Ameyaw, a former CSA independent director, drove the SJN’s creation.

“One third of the total black Proteas representatives in the 30 years since unity revealed that they’d all suffered racial discrimination and forms of cultural alienation within the CSA set-up during their careers,” André Odendaal, a member of the interim board, told Thursday’s press conference. “This required CSA to go beyond targets and beyond box-ticking to face deep, often intangible cultural issues and the resilient structural discrimination still operating in our cricket 25 years into democracy.”

Theories that CSA were considering compensating wronged players financially have swirled, but Odendaal said that had not been decided: “There’s been a lot of talk about restoration funds and a large amount of money that CSA is going to pay. We must let people know up front that there has not been a budget for such a fund, and neither have we created a budget for one. What we are going to let happen is to ask our independent transformation ombud to engage with the cricket stakeholders, look at the issues, see how we get to understand that systemic racism persists, and then come to the board with suggestions and recommendations. At that stage CSA, in the light of advocate Ntsebeza’s findings and recommendations, will have to sit and look at the report and decide on the strategic objectives that need to be taken forward, and the process and the budget that go with that.”

CSA has a history of doing exactly the opposite. In August 2012 it promised to “implement the letter and spirit of the recommendations contained in the Nicholson report”, which followed financial corruption within the organisation. Chief among the recommendations was a board consisting of a majority of independent directors. CSA have spent nine years trying to wriggle out of that commitment, which remains unfulfilled.

Did Ntsebeza have any confidence that what he said should happen would happen? “There is no provision, either in the terms of reference nor in any statute, that any recommendations I make must be enforced. [But] the resources and the time that will have been spent on this project should not have been in vain. Did I sense in the discussions that I had with CSA that there is a commitment, an appetite to do this thing, and make sure the recommendations are implemented or implementable? I got that sense, otherwise I wouldn’t have taken the job.

“I don’t have a magic wand and I’ve not been mandated to carry a big stick and go after people and get them to do things I said need to be done. I would hope that those to whom implementation of the recommendations fall will rise to the occasion.

“I have read the Nicholson report; I’ve read all manner of reports about recommendations that were not implemented. I’ve even asked myself why, in the light of all these past failures, are we seemingly doing something that has not achieved anything. My answer is that if we never went back to evaluate what had been done and to find out out what went wrong, and from there getting the benefit of that analysis — trying to see if it could be done differently or if no persuasion can come about which causes the nature of things to change — then the world would have been at a standstill. Changes come about because people who failed in their first experiments went back and tried to achieve a different result.”

That’s an admirable perspective, but Ntsebeza shouldn’t expect it to be shared by everyone he deals with in the coming months. A glimpse of South African cricket’s fraught internal politics was had in November, when the men’s national team refused to take a knee — the global gesture of support for racial justice — before matches in their series against England. They have clung to that position, as have the women’s national team.

“We were a little disappointed that our team did not take the knee, which we explained to them at the time,” Odendaal said. “The board discussed it and were very supportive of such a move. The chairperson [then Zak Yacoob] wrote to the team and to the director of cricket [Graeme Smith] and the answer was that while the team supported the stand against racism and it had been through a pre-season course of bonding and discussing these matters, they decided on a slightly different approach which the group as a whole had bought into.”

That was to raise a fist after the national anthem before the first Test against Sri Lanka in Centurion on December 26. The board differed. “The board, while maintaining its own position, given the strength of Black Lives Matter and [of the] taking the knee action throughout the world, felt in a country with our history that would be most appropriate,” Odendaal said. “It was not something for us a board to decree should happen. It brought across to us that CSA should have a broad policy that all components buy into and that we would continue to talk this through with the players and the team going forward.”

Ntsebeza should thus be under no illusion that he is in for anything but a challenging time. He has, of course, been here before. The TRC was criticised for achieving little in the way of reconciliation, and it lacked the authority to punish the guilty for their crimes. But maybe that is misreading its mission, as Ntsebeza suggested: “Once people are given an opportunity to say, in their own words, the things that hurt them, then that process in and of itself has the magic of restoring to them their dignity.” And that is priceless.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Nightwatchman De Kock has plenty to ponder

“We want to be able to throw first punches. In the past we’ve let other teams throw first punches, instead of us. That’s where we want to get better.” – Quinton de Kock

TELFORD VICE | Cape Town

PLAYERS of Quinton de Kock’s calibre are seldom saddled with nightwatchman’s duties. More often others are enlisted in that role to protect valuable assets like De Kock. But a nightwatchman of sorts he will be this summer.

De Kock was appointed South Africa’s Test captain on December 11 despite CSA director of cricket Graeme Smith saying in April that that would not happen. De Kock himself said, in July, that he didn’t want the job, not least because he is also the white-ball captain and a major batter and the wicketkeeper in all formats.

What changed between July and December 11? “The guys phoned me,” De Kock told an online press conference on Monday. “When they told me the situation we’re in, I understood where they were coming from. I didn’t accept it immediately. I did think about it.”

CSA has had since February 17, when Faf du Plessis announced he had resigned the Test captaincy, to think about it. It has, of course, also had a lot more to think about. Considering CSA’s chronis inability to think and act sensibly, it is no surprise that the vacancy stayed unfilled for five months.

It has still not been permanently filled. A key factor in De Kock agreeing to add the Test captaincy to his already heavy workload was that the appointment is limited to the 2020/21 season. De Kock is thus charged with maintaining a riff on the nightwatchman theme: keep things neat and tidy until South Africa’s next Test captain grabs the ring.

“It’s not a long-term thing,” De Kock said. “It’s just [until] we get someone who really puts up their hand as the leader of the Test team, and they will take over. The guys are looking for a long-term leader. I won’t be doing that. It does seem as if I have a lot on my plate but I’m happy to do it for now, until things happen.”

The first of those things starts at Centurion on Saturday, when the two-match series against Sri Lanka begins. Before February last year Sri Lanka were invariably on a hiding to nothing in Tests in South Africa, who won all five series the teams contested there from 1998 to 2016. The visitors flipped that narrative last February when they played some of the most compelling cricket yet seen by any team anywhere to win by one wicket at Kingsmead and by eight wickets at St George’s Park. That made Sri Lanka the first Asian side to claim a Test series in South Africa.

De Kock, along with Du Plessis, Temba Bavuma, Dean Elgar, Keshav Maharaj, Aiden Markram and Wiaan Mulder are, Covid permitting, South Africa’s survivors from the squad that felt that pain. “One or two of us do have that memory, and we’re here to rectify things,” De Kock said. “They came here and they hurt us on our own grounds. We want to win the series convincingly.”

A difference this time will be that the matches will be played on fast Highveld pitches. Would the South Africans have a word with groundstaff to ensure their pace attack — perennially their strength — has the advantage? “The wickets speak for themselves at the Wanderers and Centurion,” De Kock said. “We know there’s pace and bounce, and it does get up and down as the Test goes on. I don’t think we have to do any talking to the groundsmen. They should know what to prepare. They’re going to be good wickets. It’s just the nature of Centurion and the Wanderers. That’s what we expect.”

What will South Africans see from their team under De Kock? “We want to play clever Test cricket. We want to be streetwise in the way we go about things. We want to be able to throw first punches. In the past we’ve let other teams throw first punches, instead of us. That’s where we want to get better.”

Not that cricket is all the rubber will be about. In the wake of England going home on December 10, in the middle of their white-ball series in South Africa, because of repeated positive tests for Covid-19 within the squads’ apparently bio-secure environment, the focus is sharply on CSA’s ability to run the game competently in cricket’s new normal.

“We do have protocols, and from day one everyone has been adhering to them,” De Kock said. “We have that responsibility but it’s nothing that we can’t handle. It’s a small thing we can do to help out to ensure tours during bubble life and Covid times. We do what we can to make sure our bubble is safe.”

The squads have been in the bubble since Saturday. Should they be given a clean bill of health after Tuesday’s round of tests, cricket itself could come to the fore. “We were given the protocols a week in advance, so we knew what we were going into,” De Kock said. “We arrived, did a Covid test and then quarantined until the results came out. There’s been social distancing — we go get dinner and then go back to our rooms. Training’s done in staggered sessions in groups.

“It has been a little bit difficult these two or three days, but once we do our next Covid test and we all test negative, I’m sure it will all go back to normal. It’s a matter of waiting it out, making sure we do everything right, and then getting back to normal things within the bubble.”

Things will not be that simple. CSA released a curiously timed statement on Friday in which its interim board highlighted South Africa’s refusal to take a knee, the universally recognised gesture of solidarity with Black Lives Matter (BLM), before matches in their T20I series against England last month. The release was apparently prompted by the team’s statement on November 25 in which they said they would not kneel but failed to explain why not. Instead they said they were “exploring the significance of taking the knee and a raised fist”.

Friday’s release said board chair Zak Yacoob had “expressed concern about the implications of this statement. The interim board believes that the subsequent public and media criticism has justified these concerns.”

The release said Yacoob had written to Smith and Mark Boucher, South Africa’s coach, on November 25 to say that “while the interim board respected the constitutional right of individuals to freedom of expression as guaranteed by the constitution, the interim board felt that ‘we should embrace every aspect of our constitution’ fully as South Africans and show ‘the world that all of us are together in opposing racism at every turn’.”

The interim board had “reaffirmed the significance of the current worldwide movement against systemic racism in sport, noting that it was not a sectarian political cause but a broad social justice campaign garnering wide support from athletes all over the world, bringing together a coalition of support across national, racial, class, religious and generational lines. The interim board feels black lives matter [sic] has a particular meaning given South Africa’s apartheid past. Therefore, the interim board has confirmed CSA’s support for BLM – first expressed on July 9 in the aftermath of the letter sent to CSA by 36 [black and brown] former national players and senior coaches.”

Nineteen of the 24 players in South Africa’s squad for the T20Is against England played in the 3TC game at Centurion on July 9, when all involved took a knee. So why are they opposed to doing so when they wear the colours of a team representing a country where racism was legislated as law and remains a faultline of inequality?

“Judge Yacoob explained that while the interim board could not compel the national team to act, it would encourage the Proteas to continue with their stated intention of engaging with this issue,” Friday’s release said. “He said it was in the national interest that our sports representatives reflected the constitutional imperatives for South Africans to address lingering discrimination, indignities and exclusions.”

If that made it seem as if the board is on the side of the angels in the fight for racial justice — and that by implication the team could be seen to have chosen the other side — the last sentence of Friday’s release muddied the matter.

“Finally, the chairperson noted that while the interim board would remain engaged with this issue, it had also applied its mind to the SJN [Social Justice and Nation-building] initiative and subsequently placed it on hold, pending further consideration which includes obtaining legal opinion from legal counsel.”

The SJN is the brainchild of Eugenia Kula-Ameyaw, whose resignation along with the rest of the board in October will go unlamented. But, despite her questionable behaviour as a director, Kula-Ameyaw did start something worthwhile in the shape of the SJN. For the interim board to point fingers at the team over its position on BLM with one hand and be seen to use the other hand to, without explanation, inhibit CSA’s existing efforts to have an honest conversation about race makes little obvious sense.

The time for South Africa to take a knee is gone. If they do so on Saturday, they will be condemned as performative sellouts. If they don’t, they should know that South Africans — including the interim board — will demand to know what they are doing, not simply saying, to work towards a more just society.

De Kock is a fine player and he might yet prove himself a good captain. But he should know, if he doesn’t already, that the cricket is the least of his worries.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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All the presidents’ people

A roll call of the more or less reprehensible in South African cricket, recording their names and the context of their involvement.

TELFORD VICE | Cape Town

DESPITE mounting pressure from every stakeholder in South African cricket, along with the threat of either state control or international suspension — or both — two votes went against appointing the interim board at CSA’s members council meeting on Monday.

The council is the game’s highest authority in the country, and thus central to the shambles cricket has been steered into during the last three years. So it was surprising that it initially rejected, in a letter to sports minister Nathi Mthethwa last Wednesday, the get-out-of-jail card represented by Mthethwa’s proposed interim board. Only following four meetings after that was the light seen, and even then not unanimously. That does not bode well for the hope that the board and the council find ways to work together, which both have expressed.

Council members received a summary of Monday’s vote, not a breakdown. Cricbuzz has been told who the dissenters might be, and has asked them to confirm. Neither has responded. Even so, we know who sits on the members council, and how long they have been there — crucial facts in the effort to root out the rot.

The structure normally comprises representatives of CSA’s 12 provincial affiliates, its two associates, and CSA’s president and vice-president. Of the current members, five were part of the council on September 28, 2017: Rudy Claassen, Craig Nel, Donovan May, Rihan Richards and Angelo Carolissen. A sixth who was around then, Oupa Nkagisang, hasn’t been part of council business since December 2018, when CSA took control of the affiliate he leads on claims of maladministration.

The 2017 date is important because it was when Thabang Moroe made the unlikely leap from serving as Gauteng’s president and CSA’s vice-president to CSA’s acting chief executive, a vacancy created by Haroon Lorgat’s engineered ousting. Also crucial is that it was the board, not the council, that installed Moroe despite the fact that — CSA told parliament in October — he was not qualified for the position.

The board responsible for appointing Moroe comprised Chris Nenzani, Beresford Williams, Richards, Zola Thamae, Tando Ganda, Faeez Jaffar, Norman Arendse, Mohammed Iqbal Khan, Dawn Mokhobo, Vusi Pikoli and Louis von Zeuner, although Arendse missed key meetings because of ill health. Along with Moroe, Nenzani, Williams, Thamae, Ganda and Richards also sat on the council at that stage. Richards is the only survivor who was part of both of those bodies. He is now the acting president of the council.

When Lorgat left CSA, it had a bank balance of the equivalent of USD73.7-million and did not want for sponsors. Moroe was appointed to the job proper by the board on July 17, 2018. When he was suspended on charges of serious misconduct in December, having given himself sweeping powers, it was projected that CSA would be USD68.4-million in debt by the end of the 2022 rights cycle. Sponsors had either announced their impending departure or were scaling back their commitment.

Tebogo Siko, Anne Vilas, Ben Dladla, Xolani Vonya, Xander Snyders, Ashraf Burns, Dawid Roodt and Simphiwe Ndzundzu became part of the council after Moroe was appointed in a permanent capacity, and thus cannot be blamed for abiding by the board’s decision. Vilas, Burns and Roodt came onto the council between May and August this year — after Moroe was suspended — so are unsullied by this saga.

The same cannot be said for Claassen, Nel, May, Richards, Siko and Carolissen. May and Siko joined the board last year, in February and September, and Carolissen in September 2018, so they are even more culpable. They didn’t help appoint Moroe, but they also didn’t stop him damaging the game.

After months of unheeded calls for the board to go, Nenzani resigned as CSA’s president on August 17. He was followed by the remaining members on October 25 and 26: Williams, Carolissen, May, Siko, Thamae, John Mogodi, Dheven Dharmalingham, Marius Schoeman, Eugenia Kula-Ameyaw and Vuyokazi Memani-Sedile. But Carolissen, May and Siko are still with us as affiliate presidents and thus council members.

The point of this roll call of the more or less reprehensible is to record the names of those involved in South African cricket’s ongoing ugliness and to sketch the context of their involvement. It isn’t intended to make for sparkling reading.

The names of 31 administrators are recorded above. That only three of them — Vilas, Burns and Roodt — can be given a clean audit is an indictment on the state of the game in this country. And even that is conditional: we don’t know whether any or two of them voted against the sanity of allowing the interim board to be appointed.

As for the other, blemished 28, we know what you did last summer. And the summer before that. And the one before that. And before that. And in the winters, too …

First published by Cricbuzz.

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72 hours that shook SA cricket’s world

CSA’s entire board has resigned, although some will roam the game like zombies. What made them go after months of bloodymindedness, and what happens now?

TELFORD VICE | Cape Town

SEVENTY-TWO hours after Cricket South Africa’s (CSA) board were asked, not for the first time, to step aside and, also not for the first time, refused, all 10 directors had resigned.

The announcement that Zola Thamae, Marius Schoeman, Eugenia Kula-Ameyaw and Vuyokazi Memani-Sedile were out of the game was posted on CSA’s official twitter account on Monday morning.

They followed Beresford Williams, Angelo Carolissen, Donovan May, Tebogo Siko, John Mogodi and Dheven Dharmalingham, who quit on Sunday.

“After the Members’ Council had deliberated and resolved that in order to best serve the interest of cricket in South Africa, the entire Board should resign — which they did,” CSA tweeted. “All Independent and Non-Independent Directors have now resigned.”

What cricket’s stakeholders have been calling for since December has been achieved. Now what?

CSA are nominally led by Rihan Richards, the former board member who represents Northern Cape on the Members Council — cricket’s highest authority — of which he was named president on Sunday. But Richards could be reduced to a figurehead by Wednesday.

Sports minister Nathi Mthethwa will wait until close of business on Tuesday for CSA to argue against his intervention in their affairs. Whatever they say is unlikely to cut much ice with him.

Not so fast, sportslovers. Having allowed cricketminded South Africans to enjoy the moment of the despised board’s demise, CSA put out a lunchtime release that said: “All resignations are with immediate effect except for three members, namely, Zola Thamae, John Mogodi and Donovan May, who will remain as directors until the interim board structure has been appointed to ensure the continuity and stability of the organisation.”

The release also said Richards would chair this zombie board, which might not be with us for long.

Mthethwa will probably instruct the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) to establish an interim structure to control cricket, at least until CSA’s annual meeting on December 5.

Speculation on who might be part of this body is running wild, but it seems sure to include a respected former player and a figure who has high level experience with the International Cricket Council.

South Africans more interested in who is on the field rather than in the boardroom should be assured that the domestic season will still start on November 2, and that England remain on course to send their men’s team to the country on November 16 to play six white-ball internationals.

But what changed between the Members Council asking the board to go at a meeting on Thursday night, and being rebuffed, and Monday morning?

Because the players in this contest wear collar and tie and not pads and helmets doesn’t make the question any less intriguing.

The answer could lay in the weakness that has been baked into CSA’s organisational design. The same Members Council that asked the board to resign includes six now former board members — who opposed the proposal when it was debated.

But they were outvoted by the eight people on the Members Council who were not on the board, and it was resolved that the board should be asked to relinquish their positions.

That put the suits who were on both structures in an invidious position. They couldn’t very well refuse to enact, at board level, a Members Council resolution they had been part of, even though they had dissented. Once the decision to ask the board to quit had been made they were duty bound to walk the Members Council’s talk.

Even so, except for Williams, the non-independent directors will remain on the Members Council as provincial representatives.

That no doubt accounts for the jarringly touchy feely tone of other CSA tweets on Monday: “The Members’ Council thanks every member who diligently served on the Board and selflessly sacrificed their time for extended and often, overwhelming periods, to assist [CSA].

“The Members’ Council appreciates their commitment to cricket and despite the turbulent economic climate, CSA, under their leadership, received an unqualified audit for the financial year ending 30 April 2020. The Council wishes them well in their future endeavours.”

The undearly departed directors should be under no illusion that that sentiment is shared in the provinces from which most of them came, and to which they owed their places on the board.

“It’s a shit show,” Garret Perry, the vice-chair of the Nelson Mandela Bay Cricket Association and the president of Port Elizabeth Cricket Club, told Daily Maverick on Monday.

“Maybe it’s because there are people in important positions at CSA who have never played the game, or maybe because they are trying to make as much as they can out of cricket.

“But you get the feeling that people who do want to give back to the game and want to do the right thing — people like [former acting chief executive] Jacques Faul — are worked out of their positions.”

Independent directors are not part of the Members Council, so aren’t subject to the kind of pressure faced by non-independents.

But when the independent Dharmalingham — the only director who was willing to resign on Thursday — went on Sunday, the other independents, Schoeman, Kula-Ameyaw and Memani-Sedile, had nowhere to hide.

Dharmalingham, who chaired the finance committee, and Schoeman, who was in charge of the social and ethics committee, brought competence to a structure in dire need of exactly that. But the removal of Kula-Ameyaw, the transformation chair, will not be lamented.

Faul’s resignation on August 17 is understood to have been fallout from the publication in the Sunday Times of a full-page advertisement that cost CSA R521,000 — and which was placed at Kula-Ameyaw’s insistence.

The chief financial officer and the chief executive were required to approve expenditure of that size. Pholetsi Moseki, the CFO, at first opposed it but then made a curious about turn. Faul was never in favour, and maintained his stance. The advertisement was published nonetheless.

Dharmalingham boxed clever in his explanation to parliament on October 13: “As a non-exec director, we do not have any mandate to authorise any expenditure. So, from that perspective, Dr Eugenia could not have authorised that expenditure.

“In terms of the process within the organisation, any procurement goes through procurement and, depending on the quantum — and in this case the quantum was such that it had to be approved by at least the CFO and the CEO — in this scenario it was actually approved by the CFO and it was done within his mandate.”

The fact that Faul did not sign the purchase order, as he would have had to do for the money to be spent legitimately, was conveniently glossed over.

By then, it was plain Kula-Ameyaw was ill-suited to her role. On August 28 she told a press conference: “What I don’t like about cricket is they don’t predict how long they will play. Football is 45, 45 [minutes]; then you are done. I only watch the highlights of cricket, not the whole game. I don’t have time for that.”

On September 16, after Momentum, one of CSA’s few remaining sponsors, said they were ending most of their relationship with cricket, she tweeted: “Momentum forgets that we invest hundreds of millions in Momentum in our SOE [state-owned enterprises] and pension funds. I remember asking for the BBBEE [broad-based black economic empowerment, and affirmative action policy] certificate in my other board.”

Momentum are a Level One Contributor in BBBEE terms, the highest certification there is, and they have a BBBEE recognition level of 135%.

Kula-Ameyaw had ended her tweet: “Just check before you make an irrational decision.”

Sound advice. Clearly, it was not taken.

First published by Daily Maverick.

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Four more run … from the game … Nathi’s in the mood

“All resignations are with immediate effect except for three members …” – CSA take 10 steps forward, three steps backward.

TELFORD VICE | Cape Town

THE resignations of the remaining four CSA board members were revealed on Monday, a day after six others quit. That clears the way for an interim structure to be put in place by government, through its satellites, to run the game.

Former acting president Beresford Williams led the way out of the organisation on Sunday. He was followed by Angelo Carolissen, Donovan May, Tebogo Siko, John Mogodi and Dheven Dharmalingham. Only Zola Thamae, Marius Schoeman, Eugenia Kula-Ameyaw and Vuyokazi Memani-Sedile were left.

But, on Monday morning, CSA tweeted: “After the members council had deliberated and resolved that in order to best serve the interest of cricket in South Africa, the entire board should resign — which they did. All independent and non-independent directors have now resigned.”

A few hours later, CSA appeared to backtrack in a release that said: “All resignations are with immediate effect except for three members, namely, Zola Thamae, John Mogodi and Donovan May, who will remain as directors until the interim board structure has been appointed to ensure the continuity and stability of the organisation.”

The release said Rihan Richards, who was appointed acting president of the members council on Sunday, would chair the board comprising Thamae, Mogodi and May.

That comes after umpteen calls from a range of stakeholders, since December, for the board to go. And a day before CSA runs out of time to tell sports minister Nathi Mthethwa why he shouldn’t intervene in the game.

Mthethwa first gave the job of sorting out cricket to the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC), which in September told CSA’s now former board and key executives to step aside while a task team investigated the game’s ills. The board refused, and left SASCOC with the impression that it would unleash lawyers to avoid being usurped. SASCOC passed the buck back to Mthethwa, who gave CSA until close of business on October 27 to argue against him taking action against it — which could include removing the Proteas from the international arena.

Whether the board’s resignation en masse will be enough to stop Mthethwa from exercising the more extreme aspects of his authority remains to be seen, especially as executive staff like acting chief executive Kugandrie Govender, director of cricket Graeme Smith and company secretary Welsh Gwaza appear to be still in their positions.

It is unclear who will be on the interim committee, although there seems to be support for a senior player representative and an ICC voice. Also not known is whether the game will be handed back to CSA after its annual meeting on December 5.

What is known is that the domestic season will start on November 2, and that England’s men’s team will arrive next month to play three ODIs and three T20Is.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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CSA board resignations: too few, too late

“CSA understands and appreciates the board members’ reasoning behind their resignations, based on their love for cricket and their respect of CSA.” – CSA’s twitter account is in deep denial.

TELFORD VICE | Cape Town

SIX Cricket South Africa (CSA) board members down. Four to go. And they may yet go quietly into that good night when the game no longer has to suffer some of the most reckless, thoughtless, damaging administrators in all of sport.

Beresford Williams resigned as CSA’s acting president on Sunday, along with five other board members: non-independents Angelo Carolissen, Donovan May, Tebogo Siko and John Mogodi, and Dheven Dharmalingham, an independent. That leaves Zola Thamae, a non-independent, and Marius Schoeman, Eugenia Kula-Ameyaw and Vuyokazi Memani-Sedile, independents all. But already there are whispers that they, too, are looking to make like Donald. As in Duck, not Allan.

No doubt sports minister Nathi Mthethwa, who is waiting until after Tuesday to tell CSA what he plans to do to them for running cricket into the ground, has noted the exits with satisfaction. The rest of us will wonder what the hell took them so long.

CSA have been in trouble more or less since September 2017, when Thabang Moroe was named acting chief executive. Despite him not meeting the minimum requirements for the job, the board appointed him permanently in July 2018. He was suspended in December last year and fired in August this year.

And that’s only one of the myriad self-harming catastrophes into which the board have shambled. Most of the board members who made the Moroe mess had left the organisation before Sunday and been replaced, but the staggering level of denial needed to allow this to be posted on CSA’s official twitter account even as the blood gleamed wet on the floor — “CSA understands and appreciates the board members’ reasoning behind their resignations, based on their love for cricket and their respect of CSA” — proves the problems remain rudely alive and shockingly well. A public apology is the least of what is required, but don’t hold your breath: you’re dealing with something like that other Donald. As in Trump.

Since December, sponsors, the South African Cricketers’ Association, the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc), Mthethwa, the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Sport, Arts and Culture, and too many ordinary, ticket-buying, TV-watching, hero-worshipping cricketminded South Africans to count have all raged at CSA’s board.

But, as recently as September 18, Williams was going nowhere slowly. “I believe I’m still committed‚ I’m passionate‚ and can still contribute and serve the game; I choose not to go,” he replied when asked, during a press conference, why he had not resigned.

“We as a board and as collective leadership have dealt with matters head-on and I do believe we’re moving forward as a collective. I’ll continue to serve until such time as the members council decides otherwise.

“I took a decision that I either move on or I continue to serve. I decided on the latter to serve the game that I’m passionate about. I’ve been a servant of the game at various levels.

“If there was anything in which I believe I acted irresponsibly or not in the interests of the game as a director‚ I would have moved on.”

Presumably Williams felt the same way on Thursday when he and the rest of his board went into a meeting with the Members Council, CSA’s highest authority, but which includes six members of the board itself. Resignations were called for, and not given — not least because, Daily Maverick understands, board members were advised by powerful figures within CSA that there was no legal basis to demand that they remove themselves. You heard the man: “I choose not to go.”

What changed between Thursday and Sunday, when the members council met with the board again? That is not yet known. Neither do we know what will happen next.

But we can be fairly sure Mthethwa will tell Sascoc to appoint an interim committee to administer cricket at least until CSA’s annual meeting on December 5. That is likely to happen after close of business on Tuesday, when CSA run out of road to avoid the minister stepping in. And so he should.

For one thing, four board members are hanging on. For another, four of those who have quit are still on the Members Council. For still another, CSA have invented the position of “acting president of the Members Council” and given it to Northern Cape Cricket’s Rihan Richards — a former board member.

If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. Please, Mr Mthethwa, do your worst.

First published by Daily Maverick.

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Looming Mthethwa deadline flushes CSA suits

“I wish and hope that CSA finds peace in the coming months and cricket takes centre stage.” – Dheven Dharmalingham after resigning from CSA’s board.

TELFORD VICE | Cape Town

PUSH finally came to shove for troubled CSA on Sunday, when acting president Beresford Williams led an exodus of six resignations from the board. The mass walkout follows months of calls from various stakeholders for the board to go, three days after it refused the latest demand that it do so, and two days before government is due to say what shape its promised intervention into the game’s affairs will take.

Williams, Angelo Carolissen, Donovan May, Tebogo Siko, John Mogodi and Dheven Dharmalingham all walked the plank. Only Zola Thamae, a non-independent, and Marius Schoeman, Eugenia Kula-Ameyaw and Vuyokazi Memani-Sedile, all independents, remain aboard the burning deck of cricket’s listing ship. But there are indications that they might also be on their way out.

Northern Cape Cricket president Rihan Richards, a former board member, has been installed as president of the members council, CSA’s highest authority where each of the 14 provinces is represented.

Williams, who assumed office when Chris Nenzani resigned in August, also left the members council — which still includes Carolissen, May, Siko and Mogodi. Whether their continued presence, and that of the four remaining board members, will prompt tough action from sports minister Nathi Mthethwa remains to be seen. Under South African law, Mthethwa has the authority to withdraw the Proteas from the international arena. But that seems unlikely as Mthethwa, along with the health and home affairs ministries, has granted permission for England to tour next month despite South Africa’s pandemic regulations keeping the borders closed to travellers from the United Kingdom.

Dharmalingham, who chaired the finance committee and first tendered his resignation on Friday, is the only non-independent board member who quit on Sunday. “I wish and hope that CSA finds peace in the coming months and cricket takes centre stage,” CSA quoted Dharmalingham as saying on its twitter account.

Peace is too ambitious a goal for an organisation that has lurched from one crisis to the next for the past three years. If they weren’t in trouble for shoddy management they were in the spotlight for questionable governance, and all against a backdrop of plummeting finances.

What will probably happen next is that Mthethwa, who has given CSA until October 27 to furnish him with reasons why he should not get involved in cricket, will order the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) to establish an interim committee to run the game until CSA’s annual meeting on December 5.

A brave new world awaits CSA, which has already been transformed from what it was on September 18, when Williams was asked at a press conference why he had not resigned. “I believe I’m still committed‚ I’m passionate‚ and can still contribute and serve the game. I choose not to go. We as a board and as collective leadership have dealt with matters head-on and I do believe we’re moving forward as a collective. I’ll continue to serve until such time as the members council decides otherwise. I took a decision that I either move on or I continue to serve. I decided on the latter to serve the game that I’m passionate about. I’ve been a servant of the game at various levels. If there was anything in which I believe I acted irresponsibly or not in the interests of the game as a director‚ I would have moved on.”

It appears Williams felt that way going into Thursday’s meeting of the members council, where the entire board was asked to resign and reportedly refused. What a difference three days makes.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Even pompous, parasitic, pathetic parliament is pissed off with CSA

South Africans who sat through this shambles of a parliamentary meeting were reminded, not for the first time, why they want their taxes back. And a new set of cricket suits while we’re at it.

TELFORD VICE | Cape Town

WHEN the sports portfolio committee of South Africa’s deeply dysfunctional parliament came face to face, virtually, with CSA’s heavyweights on Tuesday, they found themselves looking in the mirror. They didn’t like what they saw, and they said so.

For much of more than two hours, CSA was repeatedly branded as arrogant, disrespectful and undermining for failing to provide the committee with the full report on a forensic investigation into the ills afflicting a game that was in danger of destroying itself even before the pandemic arrived to hurry that process along.

By the end of the exercise, CSA had committed to complying with the committee’s demand to be furnished with the full report by Friday. “It’s a tipping point and a step in the right direction,” Marius Schoeman, the independent member of CSA’s board who chairs the finance committee and easily the most believable of all who attended Tuesday’s meeting, said of the parliamentary committee’s resolution. “The protocol to follow is that the members council will just be consulted and confirm that the board may release this report. It will be released in hard copy by Fundudzi [the firm that conducted the investigation] by Friday, close of business, 16 hours 30. If this is not done by 16:30 on Friday then I will resign.”

CSA received the document on July 31, but has resisted releasing it — including to the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC), who asked for it — citing legal and governance implications. Lawyers acting for CSA prepared a summary, which was made public on Monday. Angered by that, and by CSA’s admission that minister of sport Nathi Mthethwa had been given a copy of the report, the committee demanded the document.

That an institution as low in the public’s esteem as parliament, for many the epicentre of corruption in the country, should feel emboldened to lecture others on the rights and wrongs of anything will be seen as an indication of just how far cricket has fallen. Or taken as an instance of politicians using the opportunity to take the heat off themselves by attacking easy targets. Either way, South Africans who sat through this shambles were reminded, not for the first time, why they want their taxes back. And a new set of cricket suits while we’re at it.

The unfunny comedy started with committee chair Beauty Dlulane issuing a bumptious soliloquy about CSA’s failure to deliver on a promise made to the same committee in June that it would make the report available once it was complete. “I respected cricket’s leadership when they said they were waiting and processing,” Dlulane began. “But the respect I have given you I didn’t see in return.

“You think that this report does not belong to the committee. Why should we wait, five months down the line? And instead of this committee being given the full report [a summary] goes to the public. I’m very disappointed with your leadership for disrespecting even the chairperson of this committee, who gave you chances when the members [of the committee] said I shouldn’t.

“You didn’t have the courtesy of thinking, five months down the line, that there is a committee of parliament that you were supposed to prioritise. I don’t take kindly to what you have done to me. I’m so disappointed in your leadership that, five months down the line, you have done this to us.”

That set the tone for too many versions of Dlulane’s view, interspersed with infantile squabbling and occasional nuggets of relevance. Like the director general of sport, Vusumusi Mkhize, saying, “I can confirm that the report was delivered directly to the minister personally to minimise risk of the information leaking.” And another independent member of CSA’s board, Dheven Dharmalingam, reminding all present that the findings of an investigation, even if they had led to Thabang Moroe being fired as CSA chief executive, were minor compared to what loomed in the real world: “We need to get our players back to playing. If we don’t, when do we earn our next rand? What the business of CSA is all about is selling content. If our players are not playing we’re not going to survive as an organisation anyway. And hundreds of people in South Africa who are reliant for their livelihood on CSA will be impacted.”

South Africa’s fixture lists, domestic and international, are blank — not only as a result of CSA’s ineptitude but also because the borders remain closed to travelling teams. There are serious doubts about CSA’s ability to run the game, but there is no doubt that Covid-19, and the regulations to combat the spread of the virus, could kill it.

That didn’t stop Eugenia Kula-Ameyaw, another of CSA’s independent directors, from wandering down a tangent and trying to argue that SASCOC, rather than parliament, should be furnished with the report: bizarre considering CSA was fighting desperately against doing exactly that just days ago. Kula-Ameyaw’s proposal was summarily shot down, prompting Dlulane to pronounce: “The more time we give you to talk as individuals, I’m suspecting you don’t understand what you want to do.”

At least she got that right.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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