Cricket SA (CSA) boss Gerald Majola emerged virtually unscathed from a board meeting in which details of event bonuses paid to CSA staff were revealed by a panel in Kempton Park on Friday.
Majola was also cleared of any wrongdoing after questions were raised in connection with over R500 000 in travel expenses incurred by the CSA chief executive and his wife.
The CSA board said Majola would be “formally cautioned” after failing to fully disclose almost R5-million in event bonuses paid to staff after CSA hosted the 2009 Indian Premier League (IPL) and the ICC Champions Trophy.
A three-man review committee — CSA vice-president AK Khan, CSA finance chairperson John Bester and CSA audit committee chairperson John Blair — said they had not found Majola to have deliberately withheld details of the bonuses.
More careful with his paperwork
The committee added, however, that Majola would need to be more careful with his paperwork in future.
‘Majola [must] ensure that payments received by him are authorised by the appropriate committee or body within CSA, and that all amounts received by him from sources other than CSA be promptly and comprehensively reported to Remco [the CSA remuneration committee],” the committee said in its report.
The event bonuses paid to all CSA staff, including Majola and former CSA chief operating officer Don McIntosh, needed to be ratified.
Majola would also face a four-man panel expected to “take him through the processes of making sure this type of error does not occur again”, according to Khan.
Of the R4,7-million in bonuses CSA received from the IPL and the ICC, Majola pocketed R1 775 143 — equivalent to eight times his annual salary. McIntosh received R1 447 985.
The review committee found Majola had informed the board of the bonus payments, although details were not given or requested, but had not made “proper disclosure” because he did not give Remco the breakdown of amounts paid to staff.
“The co-existing event management set-up and the CSA management set-up contributed to an unsatisfactory lapse in communication,” the committee said in the report.
“Remco should have interrogated the disclosure by seeking information as to the precise quantum of the bonuses. Remco did not do so, and its omission to do so is not, in our view, tantamount to Majola not making disclosure.” A separate review committee said Majola had followed the correct procedures in claiming expenses for trips with his wife on CSA business.
“The budget clearly differentiates between domestic and international travel, amounting to a total of R1,4-million,” Bester said.
‘The difference in these two divisions combined was R771 000 less than the budget had allocated.” CSA president Mtutuzeli Nyoka said the board had accepted the review committee’s recommendations.
‘Majola has acted within the constraints of his contract and he has not abused the system,” Nyoka said. – Sapa