Government retains pressure on Sascoc

Government is unlikely to retreat from the SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee’s (Sascoc) ongoing internal battles, despite receiving a warning from global sports bodies to step back.

Responding to a joint statement from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Paralympic Committee (IPC),
which called on government to give Sascoc space in order to resolve its problems, sports minister Nathi Mthethwa said on Tuesday he was not convinced that the national umbrella body could do so without assistance.

This despite an IOC and IPC rule which did not allow for government interference in Olympic sports.

“As government we remain unconvinced that Sascoc has demonstrated the necessary will to deal decisively with their internal problems,” the sports ministry said in a statement.

In an independent ministerial inquiry in 2018, the Sascoc board was found to be dysfunctional due to in-fighting and poor corporate
governance.

Of the 42 recommendations which were made by the inquiry and accepted by government, Sascoc had since addressed 26 of them, with 16 still to be resolved.

“Whilst a few of the 16 might be addressed by the elective conference, others will require financial resources that Sascoc does not have,”
the sports ministry warned.

Though lockdown restrictions had forced Sascoc to postpone its elections to fill its vacant president’s seat, internal battles continued to wage within the organisation’s executive committee.

Four nominees for the elections – Aleck Skhosana, Farrell Moses, Cecilia Molokwane and Jerry Segwaba – won an appeal this week, making them eligible to stand after they alleged their applications had been blocked.

Earlier this month, former acting Sascoc president Barry Hendricks was suspended after being accused of attempting to block the nomination of Tennis South Africa (TSA) board member Ntambi Ravele.

Hendricks subsequently called for the Sascoc board to be dissolved and for an independent administrator to be appointed to lead the struggling organisation until elections could be held.

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