This comes just one day before Cricket SA’s ever decreasing Board of Directors meets for a special emergency sitting.
Calls for Cricket South Africa’s chief executive Thabang Moroe and the organisation’s president Chris Nenzani to resign their posts have reached a crescendo just one day before Cricket SA’s ever decreasing Board of Directors meets for a special emergency sitting.
Yesterday, the Willowton Group, who through their brand Sunfoil, was once a major sponsor of Cricket SA’s, and one which remains a backer at grassroots level, stated emphatically that the pair had to resign immediately as part of far-reaching measures to clean up the game.
Furthermore, The Willowton Group, stated, in what it described as “immediate actions,” that Cricket SA had to reappoint Corrie van Zyl, Clive Eksteen and Nassei Appiah who were all suspended for what was described as dereliction of their duties, the reappointment of independent directors Shirley Zinn and Mohammed Iqbal Khan, who resigned from their positions on the Board this week, the appointment of a lead director – a position left vacant since Norman Arendse stepped down last year and an independent audit review of the whole organisation.
In announcing his resignation on Wednesday night, Khan who’d served on the Board for six years and was chairman of CSA’s Financial and Commercial Committee, said his position had become “untenable.”
“The criticism in the media, and by the public who love and support cricket, has reached such a crescendo, that I can no longer be deaf to the cries for immediate changes at CSA Board level,” Khan wrote in a letter addressed to Nenzani.
Khan made some startling claims in his resignation letter citing; widespread abuse of the office credit card, a “toxic atmosphere” that had led to several resignations, “selective communication with SACA (SA Cricketers Association) and a failure to engage with them in terms of the CSA Collective Agreement,” the mishandling of the Director of Cricket issue, the revoking of media accreditation of five journalists, hastily arranging a media conference on Tuesday and then cancelling it, and bringing Cricket SA into disrepute.
Khan’s resignation follows that of Shirley Zinn, who jumped ship on Tuesday.
In a further sign of the declining standards of governance at CSA, another Board member, Jack Madiseng, slammed Nenzani and CSA’s vice-president Beresford Williams for their failure to support Moroe. Citing the recent Arbitration finding in favour of the Western Province Cricket Association as one example, Madiseng said Moroe had been hung to dry by the two senior administrators
“Our brand is in a mess and your lack/poor leadership has misled the public to think that we, as the board, have fully empowered the CEO to independently make all decisions, which is wrong,” wrote Madiseng in a letter sent to Nenzani and Williams last week.
“Based on the above, the poor CEO has been getting all the ‘klaps and punches’ from the media and the public without the presence of the CSA leadership, which is both of you.”
The players union, SACA will hold an executive meeting this morning where a possible strike will be discussed. Cricket SA’s remaining 10 Directors will hold an emergency meeting on Saturday.
