JOHANNESBURG, Nov 13: Sports Minister Nathi Mthethwa has threatened to use his statutory powers for withdrawing recognition of Cricket South Africa if the members of CSA council don�t recognise the interim board �immediately�.
Cricket South Africa members� council on Thursday decided not to recognise the nine-member interim Board of Directors that were appointed by Mthethwa two weeks ago, citing technicalities in terms of CSA�s Memorandum of Incorporation.
�I find it most regrettable that you have purported to take the decision not to recognise the Interim Board,� Mthetwha wrote in a five page letter addressed to CSA�s acting president Rihan Richards according to www.iol.co.za.
�I implore you and the Members� Council to re-visit this decision immediately, and to afford the necessary recognition to the Interim Board, failing which, I will exercise my powers under the Act and issue a directive in that regard.�
Richards had said that there was a �breakdown in the relationship� between the Members� Council and the interim board � the two bodies that were supposed to clean up CSA�s governance structures.
Mthethwa said it �defies logic� that the relation can break down in just two weeks.
�The game has lurched from one crisis to the another on an almost daily basis. In the circumstances, I would be failing in my statutory and constitutional duty not to intervene in what is nothing other than the poor governance of a sport which is a national asset.�
Former CEO Haroon Lorgat, who had stepped down in 2017 after rift with board members following the failure to launch the now-defunct Global T20 League, was named in the interim board, something which the member council didn�t approve of as it was concerned about his conflict of interest.
Lorgat was still the CEO in 2016-2017, a period which has been covered by the Fundudzi report, which was comissioned earlier this year to probe poor goverance of CSA.� PTI
