JOHANNESBURG – Cricket SA’s Interim Board has reiterated its disappointment with the organisation’s Members Council for refusing to co-operate with it and make much needed changes to the federation’s administrative structure.
The Interim Board, chaired by Stavros Nicolaou, the Aspen Pharmacare Group's Senior Executive responsible for Strategic Trade Development, provided Sports Minister Nathi Mthethwa with an update both verbally and in writing this week about the latest failure to implement the changes needed to CSA administration.
Mthethwa, who appointed the Interim Board at the end of October last year, to sort out the administrative mess at CSA, which had led to a forensic audit, a plethora of resignations and suspensions and a general breakdown of trust between the organisation the players, sponsors and public, is understood to be furious with the Members Council for choosing not to agree to changes to the administration.
ALSO READ: This pettiness in the Cricket South Africa saga must end
Mthethwa mandated the Interim Board to, among other things, implement the recommendations of the Nicholson commission, specifically as those related to the composition of the new board of directors, with an emphasis on the majority of directors being independent.
By a vote of eight to six on Saturday, the Members Council - Cricket SA’s highest decision making body comprising the 14 provincial presidents - chose not to do that. However in an attempt to win over some of the presidents the Interim Board has been engaging with some of them on an individual basis in the last few days.
“The (Interim Board) has done so because it appears that some of the affiliate votes may not have been recorded accurately and/or there may have been some misunderstanding regarding the interpretation of certain principles including the principle of ‘independence’ of a future Board,” read a statement from CSA on Thursday evening.
“A majority independent Board is a widely-held corporate governance principle both in South Africa and internationally,” said Nicolaou. “That the Members’ Council has reneged and now refuses to accept this principle is short-sighted and has yet again brought cricket administration to the brink of crisis.”
“The brinkmanship, - which has become all too familiar - displayed by certain members of the Members’ Council, cannot be tolerated for much longer by the cricket-loving public,” he added.
IOL Sport