ATHLETICS
Martin Gillingham
Bruce Fordyce, South Africa’s most celebrated athlete, has thrown his weight behind the growing number of officials and athletes who are calling for answers to accusations that the sport’s top officials in this country are corrupt.
It was claimed three months ago that more than R9-million had gone missing from Athletics South Africa (ASA). The claim was taken so seriously that, on the day the story broke, ASA’s top two officials, Banele Sindani and Leonard Chuene, were summoned to Cape Town to explain themselves to Minister of Sport and Recreation Ngconde Balfour.
ASA’s reaction to the allegations was to suspend the Central Gauteng provincial association that was blamed for having leaked the story. The sports ministry, meanwhile, has conducted its own investigation. Balfour’s spokesman Graham Abrahams says its findings will be made public in the next month.
Fordyce believes the only way for the sport’s top officials to restore their reputations is to provide some answers. “Unless they do the suspicions and innuendo will continue,” he says. “It appears as if attempts to have an investigation are being quashed.”
A puzzle Fordyce would probably want solved is over Chuene, the ASA president, who, despite having no formal occupation, cuts an impressive figure in the sharpest suits while driving an executive car. What has been raising eyebrows among athletics followers is the fact that the role of ASA president has traditionally been non-executive. In Chuene’s defence, he makes no attempt to disguise his new executive role at ASA. He has an office at ASA’s Houghton head- quarters and a personal secretary.
“I don’t get a salary from ASA but I do get an allowance,” he says. Sources claim this is more than R60?000 a month. “It’s not even a quarter of that,” says Chuene.
Chuene also receives an additional allowance for his role within the International Association of Athletic Federations (IAAF), where he sits on the council as its African area group representative. Though he declined to reveal the amount, Chuene said it is a standard dollar sum paid to all council members.
Abrahams says Chuene’s finances have not formed part of the investigation. “It’s not been a question posed by anyone,” he says. “I question the motives of people who raise that question. Why should I pry into people’s private lives? That’s not the function of the Department of Sport.”
In Chuene’s favour is his genuine commitment to a sport that has seen him run the Comrades several times. Chuene was most recently seen in his role as an IAAF council member handing out medals at the world championships.
To be fair to the sports ministry and ASA’s top brass, Balfour has invited anyone with evidence of wrongdoing to come forward. None has been offered, which has left Balfour no alternative but to base his investigation on evidence provided by ASA’s auditors and Sindani’s predecessor as chief executive, Bernard Rose.
Another thing in ASA’s defence is the fact that their accusers have done themselves no favours by developing a close liaison with the Democratic Alliance. It is a relationship that has unnecessarily given the investigation a party-political dimension.
Fordyce believes the time has come for ASA to hold a bosberaad so that all of ASA’s problems, including our athletes’ performances in Edmonton, can be discussed by stakeholders.