JOHANNESBURG - Calls for Cricket SA’s chief executive Thabang Moroe and president Chris Nenzani to resign have reached a crescendo, just one day before CSA’s ever-decreasing board of directors meet for a special emergency sitting.
Yesterday, the Willowton Group, which through their brand, Sunfoil, were once a major sponsor of CSA, and remain a backer at grassroots level, stated emphatically that the pair had to resign immediately as part of measures to clean up the game.
The group said “immediate actions” CSA should undertake were the reappointment of Corrie van Zyl, Clive Eksteen and Nassei Appiah, who were suspended for what was described as dereliction of their duties, the reappointment of independent directors Shirley Zinn and Mohammed Iqbal Khan, who resigned from their positions on the board this week, the appointment of a lead director - a position left vacant since Norman Arendse stepped down last year - and an independent audit review of the whole organisation.
Announcing his resignation on Wednesday night, Khan, who had served on the board for six years and was chairperson of CSA’s Financial and Commercial Committee, said his position had become “untenable”.
“The criticism in the media, and by the public who love and support cricket, has reached such a crescendo that I can no longer be deaf to the cries for immediate changes at CSA board level,” Khan wrote in a letter addressed to Nenzani.
Khan made some startling claims in his resignation letter, citing widespread abuse of the office credit card, a “toxic atmosphere” that had led to several resignations, “selective communication with Saca (SA Cricketers’ Association) and a failure to engage with them in terms of the CSA Collective Agreement”, the mishandling of the director of cricket issue, the revoking of media accreditation of five journalists, and arranging a media conference on Tuesday and then cancelling it.
Khan’s resignation follows that of Zinn, who jumped ship on Tuesday.
In a further sign of the declining standards of governance at CSA, another board member, Jack Madiseng, slammed Nenzani and CSA’s vice-president Beresford Williams for their failure to support Moroe. Citing the recent arbitration finding in favour of the Western Province Cricket Association as one example, Madiseng said Moroe had been hung out to dry by the two senior administrators.
Madiseng and Moroe have had a tight relationship since working together on the Central Gauteng cricket board. Two former directors at Gauteng cricket, Fagmeedah Petersen-Cook and David Terbrugge, took to social media yesterday to slam Madiseng as opportunistic. “Jack Madiseng positioning himself for a CSA presidency?” Petersen-Cook tweeted.
Saca was expected to hold an executive meeting today over a possible strike.
@shockerhess
The Star
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