The poster that shows embattled CSA isn’t walking the talk
The Proteas' success under Ottis Gibson is clouding the local governing body's continued dodgy corporate governance.
Thabang Moroe. Photo: Sydney Seshibedi/Gallo Images.
On an obscure wall of the Wanderers’ unity stand hangs a poster.
It advertises Cricket South Africa’s (CSA) anonymous tip-offs line where, in conjunction with auditing firm Deloitte, one can confidentially “provide any information regarding fraud, corruption and other workplace crime”.
These posters are hardly rare – you see them everywhere.
Instead, the catchy thing about this one is the heading: “We take (sic) unethical behaviour out for a duck. Cricket South Africa is committed to the principles of honesty, integrity and accountability”.
The irony is simply too big to ignore.
It’s actually a bit of a curse that the Proteas have started so well results-wise under Ottis Gibson.
Most of us are too giddy over the return of AB de Villiers or the emergence of Lungi Ngidi to shine enough of a spotlight on the dire state of corporate governance at CSA.
Since the chaos of the postponed T20 Global League – and actually even during the planning phase – the local governing body is seemingly not all too “committed” to those principles on the unity stand poster.
Yes, they’ve said they’ve commissioned an external party to compile a report on their governance and procurement.
The problem is CSA haven’t actually given a decent reason for this except to say there were “persistent governance failures”.
It sounds like an innocuous phrase but it’s potentially a very scary umbrella term for some really big problems.
CSA will argue that’s why they’ve commissioned the external report to tell us later exactly what were those issues.
That doesn’t cut any mustard.
There’s been way too much secrecy and unanswered questions on things that are actually in the open.
How was Haroon Lorgat, the former CEO, allowed to organise without any board oversight?
Why didn’t Thabang Moroe, now the acting chief, insist on being kept in the loop? After all, he and two other board members were on a sub-committee that needed to check up on Lorgat?
In the interest of transparency and accountability, CSA at least needed to qualify why an external audit is required.
Now there’s trouble also brewing over a new memorandum of understanding (MOU) for the Proteas players.
CSA want to dictate where guys like De Villiers and Kagiso Rabada play because they’re “employees”.
Are Lionel Messi and Ronaldo “employees”?
That’s a simple question to answer.
More disturbingly, such a naive view also points to dodgy decision-making.
Heinz Schenk: Online Sports Editor.
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