CSA board resignations welcomed

Dear Cape Town

The Democratic Alliance (DA) welcomes the decision by several Cricket South Africa (CSA) board members resigning with immediate effect. While this is a positive step, CSA still has a very long road ahead of it to fix the myriad of crises within South African cricket.

Minister Nathi Mthethwa is expected to appear before Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Sports, Arts, and Culture on Tuesday. We urge him to use this as an opportunity to brief the public and Parliament on his plans to bring about stability at CSA. It is important for Parliament to know which direction cricket will be taking so that we can have assurance that the chaos engulfing CSA is being put behind us.

The CSA board’s alleged maladministration and misconduct has caused untold damage to the sport. They oversaw South African cricket to its decline, and some of the damages will take many years to fix. If action against this board was taken sooner, perhaps some of this decline would have been lessened or avoided.

Nevertheless, the DA still welcomes the board’s removal as a correct decision, especially in light of their whitewashed forensic report tabled earlier this month. The report attempted to blame one person for the crisis within CSA and essentially absolved the board from any wrongdoing in the administration of cricket in this county.

We have always maintained that the financial, administrative and leadership challenges within CSA could not solely be laid at the feet of one man as the board’s forensic report suggested, and their removal proves that we were right.

Let us be clear, the board’s removal and resignations should not absolve them from further accountability. We, therefore, call for all CSA board members and executives, past and present, who were implicated in CSA’s maladministration to be investigated and held to account.

Regards

Tsepo Mhlongo MP
DA Shadow Minister of Sports, Arts and Culture