JOHANNESBURG – Cricket South Africa made its new Memorandum of Incorporation available for public viewing on Thursday.
“It is important in the interests of transparency that the new MoI is made available to all our stakeholders,” said CSA’s Interim Board chair, Dr Stavros Nicolaou. “This includes our sponsors, our media, our players and, most importantly, the general public.”
It has been a long and fractious journey for CSA to get to the point where the MoI could be made public, with the organisation taken to the brink of disaster, after Sports Minister, Nathi Mthethwa threatened to remove recognition of CSA as the governing body for the sport in South Africa.
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That would have left the Proteas in limbo, as a team not officially recognised by the country’s government. Fortunately all of that was avoided, after a unanimous vote by the Members Council - the highest decision-making body comprising the 14 provincial presidents - to adopt the new MoI. Central to the document is provision for a Board - 15 strong - that will be made up of a majority of independent directors, one of whom will be its chair.
“This document is our constitution and brings us into line with the best standards of good corporate governance,” said CSA’s acting president, Rihan Richards.
The finalisation of the new MoI, brought to an end a period of massive upheaval within Cricket SA, which its Director of Cricket, Graeme Smith on Thursday described as hugely distracting. “When I joined CSA I thought it was at rock bottom, but that hasn’t been the case, it’s been a very challenging period,” said Smith.
Smith and Cricket SA’s acting CEO, Pholetsi Moseki, have had to take on a much bigger workloads as the federation’s lurched from crisis to crisis, with a number of officials, including former acting CEO Kugendrie Govender and company secretary Welsh Gwaza, suspended.
“The suspensions have left a huge workload across the board, not only managing what you’re meant to be focused on but also on other departments. Trying to keep the operational side of the business afloat has been really intense particularly for myself and Pholetsi,” said Smith.
“Just to have the clarity and peace of mind to now hopefully just focus on what our core jobs should be, and getting that to the level we want is important. Everyone just wants to get back and improve and to get things moving forward in a positive manner.”
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With the MoI finalised the next biggest item on CSA’s agenda is planning for the Annual General meeting on June 12, where the new Board will be revealed.
“The finalisation of this MOI is a very important milestone for CSA and for the sport of cricket and is one step that now paves a new growth pathway for our organisation and more importantly for our relationships with our partners, sponsors and all other stakeholders involved in the sport of cricket,” said Moseki.
The new MoI can be viewed at: https://cricket.co.za/cat/23/About-CSA/7543/csa-moi/
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