/ 1 October 2011

Decision on CSA expected soon

Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula will soon convey his final decision on a funds misappropriation scandal in Cricket South Africa (CSA) to the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc).

Sascoc said in a statement on Saturday that its chief executive, Tubby Reddy, had briefed Mbalula on the matter two days earlier.

“The honourable minister was presented with a full set of documents as well as a full explanation of all the processes undertaken which resulted in the CSA board’s unanimous decision in their recent board meeting in Port Elizabeth,” Reddy said.

“The next step of the matter is that the honourable minister will now revert to Sascoc shortly with his final decision on this matter.”

The CSA members’ forum recently decided to table a motion of no confidence in its president, Mtutuzeli Nyoka, who was removed from office in February after he single-handedly tried to expose financial transgressions within CSA.

He fought his removal from office in the High Court in Johannesburg and was reinstated two months later.

A special general meeting to decide Nyoka’s fate will take place on October 15. He is accused of bringing CSA into disrepute by disregarding the majority decisions of its board and of damaging its reputation.

Nyoka is also accused of transgressing the Companies’ Act by taking unauthorised loans in 2010 without the express consent of the board.

Loggerheads
Nyoka has been at loggerheads with the board since 2009 when he called for an independent audit after CSA chief executive Gerald Majola failed to follow correct CSA procedures in clearing the bonus payments.

At the CSA annual general meeting in Port Elizabeth in August, Majola was reprimanded for breaching the Companies Act, based on the results of a KPMG forensic audit.

He had already been chided for failing to disclose bonuses he had received from the Indian Premier League (IPL) and International Cricket Council (ICC) after South Africa hosted the 2009 IPL and Champions Trophy tournaments.

Unaware of these bonuses at the time, CSA awarded him a further bonus of eight times his monthly salary in the same financial year.

Nyoka has continued to argue for sterner action to be taken against Majola.

CSA said last month that the final independent audit report, by KPMG, quashed allegations that R68 million may have gone missing from CSA accounts.

CSA did not disclose whether the report made reference to the unofficial bonuses paid to Majola and 40 CSA staff members or to Majola’s possible breaches of the Companies’ Act.

In its audit report, KPMG found that R65 264 125 had been transferred into the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s (BCCI) bank account but there was no evidence to support allegations that R68-million had been misappropriated from the CSA account arising from the IPL tournament. — Sapa