Embattled cricket leaders booted from parliament meeting

Cricket South Africa delegates Beresford Williams, the acting president, and Welsh Gwaza, the company secretary, were instructed to leave the virtual meeting with parliament’s sports portfolio committee on Tuesday because they had both been implicated in the Fundudzi Forensic Report, and there could be similarly bad news for former president Chris Nenzani and the remainder of the federation’s board, including those who have already jumped ship.

CSA met with the portfolio committee to discuss the findings of the complete Fundudzi Report, which had been given to the parliamentarians on Friday, although it was patently obvious that very few of the politicians had actually bothered to read the report.

A summary of the report had already accused Williams of a conflict of interest in a R5 million loan from CSA to the Western Province Cricket Association, of which he was the former president.

Gwaza was alleged to have misled the CSA board in a multi-million rand deal with Global Sports Commerce, assuring them due diligence had been done on the company and they had a bank guarantee, apparently neither of which was true.

But new revelations emerged on Tuesday, including a potential bombshell that Nenzani had under-reported to the CSA board the size of a grant from the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture.

Marius Schoeman, the independent director who chairs the audit and risk committee and led CSA’s presentation, said: “We would like to understand why Mr Nenzani gave us a different number. There is a discrepancy because the honourable MP has given a higher number for the grants here today”.

It also emerged that fired former CSA chief executive Thabang Moroe had been appointed without meeting the minimum requirements for the vital post, as Schoeman acknowledged.

The makers of that decision by the board included Williams, Nenzani and already-departed directors such as Louis von Zeuner, Mohamed Iqbal Khan, Dawn Mokhobo and Thando Ganda.

“It is correct that the CEO was appointed without meeting the minimum requirements,” Schoeman, who was elected to the board last year, conceded.

Partly because of how poorly prepared the sports portfolio committee was to interrogate CSA, the federation seemed to mend some fences with the parliamentarians, especially with their willingness to engage the services of Sascoc in an advisory capacity as they looked to implement the full recommendations of the Nicholson Commission and restructure the composition of the board to ensure there was not as much crossover between it and the members council.

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