JOHANNESBURG – Sports Minister, Nathi Mthethwa set Cricket SA’s uncooperative provincial presidents a firm deadline on Tuesday to implement the changes to the administrative structure that he demanded last year.
By April 6, which is less than a week away, he wants CSA’s Members Council to agree with the Interim Board that he appointed last October, and ensure the recommendations of the Nicholson inquiry, specifically as they concern the number of independent directors on the new Board of Directors, are implemented.
Following what was described as a ”productive,” meeting between himself, the Interim Board and the Members Council on Tuesday evening, Mthethwa was said to have “encouraged,” the Members Council – CSA’s most powerful decision-making body, comprising the 14 provincial presidents – to “reconsider its position,” on the structure of a future Board.
The last few weeks have seen an on-going back and forth between the Interim Board, chaired by Stavros Nicolaou, the Aspen Pharmacare Group's Senior Executive responsible for Strategic Trade Development, and the Members Council about the implementation of Nicholson’s recommendations.
Mthethwa had mandated the Interim Board to ensure those recommendations were implemented. Following the Inquiry, chaired by judge Chris Nicholson ten years ago, he stated that CSA needed to create a board made up of a majority of independent directors, to be the main decision making body in the organisation.
Cricket SA reneged on implementing those measures citing the need for ‘cricket people’ to run the organisation an argument a large portion of the current Members Council fell back on recently. Eight of the 14 provincial presidents voted to retain the status quo, accusing the Interim Board of trying to “cause irreparable harm to CSA.”
Mthethwa has now – for the umpteenth time – thrown the ball back into the Members Council’s court. According to CSA’s statement, Mthethwa was “unequivocal on the principle of a majority independent Board and an independent Board chair.“
Should CSA’s Members Council refuse to listen to Mthethwa, then in terms of the powers at his disposal – through the National Sports and Recreation Act of 1998 – he can remove recognition from Cricket SA as the main authority that runs the sport in this country, taking away its right to award national colours.
IOL Sport