Sports Minister Nathi Mthethwa has threatened to use his statutory powers for withdrawing recognition of Cricket South Africa if the members of CSA council don’t recognise the interim board “immediately”.
The Cricket South Africa members’ council on Thursday decided not to recognise the nine-member interim Board of Directors appointed by Mthethwa two weeks ago, citing technicalities in terms of CSA’s Memorandum of Incorporation.
Regrettable
“I find it most regrettable that you have purported to take the decision not to recognise the interim Board,” Mthetwha wrote in a five-page letter addressed to CSA’s acting president Rihan Richards according to www.iol.co.za.
“I implore you and the Members’ Council to re-visit this decision immediately, and to afford the necessary recognition to the interim Board, failing which, I will exercise my powers under the Act and issue a directive in that regard.”
Richards had said that there was a “breakdown in the relationship” between the Members’ Council and the interim board — the two bodies that were supposed to clean up CSA’s governance structures.
Defies logic
Mthethwa said it “defies logic” that the relation can break down in just two weeks.
“The game has lurched from one crisis to the another on an almost daily basis. In the circumstances, I would be failing in my statutory and constitutional duty not to intervene in what is nothing other than the poor governance of a sport which is a national asset.”
Former CEO Haroon Lorgat, who had stepped down in 2017 after rift with board members following the failure to launch the now-defunct Global T20 League, was named in the interim board, something which the member council didn’t approve of as it was concerned about his conflict of interest.
Lorgat was still the CEO in 2016-2017, a period which has been covered by the Fundudzi report, which was commissioned earlier this year to probe poor governance of CSA.
Reasons behind failure of Global T20 league also forms part of the investigation, the report of which was used to fire Lorgat’s successor Thabang Moroe for financial misconduct.
Mthethwa, however, assured that Lorgat would recuse himself from all discussions relating to the Global T20 League.
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