CSA honchos consider brazen tweak of board laws to stay in power

Cricket South Africa's (CSA) heavyweights will on Saturday (May 16) consider a proposal that would make removing the president and vice-president significantly more difficult. Already under fire for presiding over a dire financial situation, shoddy governance, and squandering the public's trust, the leadership will likely face even more outrage for being seen to dig in their heels even as calls for their resignations echo all around.

Currently, deposing the president or vice-president needs at least two-thirds' support from the members council, the body comprised of the presidents of the 14 provincial affiliates that has the power to dissolve the board. But a draft version of an amended Memorandum Of Incorporation (MOI), CSA's founding document, sent to the members council for discussion last month calls for the minimum required majority in favour of such a motion to be increased to 80%.

The brazen push to entrench Chris Nenzani and Beresford Williams, CSA's president and vice-president, goes against a rising tide of antipathy towards them - Nenzani in particular. Several provinces have told Cricbuzz they will oppose the suggested changes at Saturday's online meeting. "Eighty percent is too high, I'm baffled by that," a senior administrator said. At least one province will attend the meeting brandishing a mandate calling for the end of Nenzani's and Williams' tenures.

An interpretation of a concurrent proposed shift is that provincial presidents would in future no longer cast ballots individually but in blocs determined by the geographical provinces in which their organisations are established. For example, the presidents of Western Province, Boland and South Western Districts each vote independently on members council matters. But, as all of them are in the Western Cape, a single province in legislative terms, the three could in future hold only one vote between them.

Thus 14 votes could become nine - the number of provinces in South Africa, geopolitically speaking. Eighty percent of nine is 7.2. So, if the amendments are made, all but one vote would be needed to unseat the president or vice-president.

The mooted changes are part of an amended MOI, seen by Cricbuzz, dated April 29 and amounting to 20,672 words divided into 37 clauses. There have been 920 internal comments and changes. An analysis by a figure who has high level knowledge of CSA's executive found serious problems with nine different areas of the document, which he described as "clearly an attempt by those in power to remain in power".

Nenzani, who was first elected in February 2013, has served both his allotted three-year terms. But, in September last year, he was granted a year's extension. Under his watch, CSA have stumbled into a hole of debt that could be almost USD55-million deep by the end of the 2022 rights cycle. A slew of senior CSA staff, including chief executive Thabang Moroe, have been suspended on allegations of mismanagement. CSA took action against Moroe on December 6 but his case is unresolved, which means he is still being paid his monthly salary of more than USD19,000.

Moroe's suspension followed CSA's revocation of the accreditation of five senior journalists who had reported on the organisation's failings. CSA hastily backtracked, but the resultant outcry prompted a sponsor whose relationship with cricket started in 1998 - and whose investment had grown to USD 27.3-million over four years - to sever ties citing "a culmination of long-standing problems which have damaged Standard Bank's reputation".

Another major backer, financial services company Momentum, demanded the resignation of the entire board, "alternatively [the] resignation of the current president and vice-president". Three of CSA's five independent board members quit in the first week of December, and despite at least 87 nominations to replace them the vacancies remain unfilled.

Nenzani survived the members council's attempt, in February, to persuade him to resign. But there are fears he will try to exploit the uncertainties brought about by the Coronavirus pandemic to remain in office even after his unprecedented seventh year in charge. If not, time will surely run out for him at CSA's annual meeting, which is scheduled for September 5.

Williams was elected CSA vice-president in February last year, and so could be considered a lesser blight on the game than Nenzani. But he became a board member at the same time as Nenzani, and will be seen as part of the same mess.

They were elevated in the wake of a scandal over more than USD 550,000 in bonuses paid to CSA by the BCCI as an appreciation for South Africa's successful staging, at short notice, of the 2009 IPL. But the money was not properly declared to CSA's governance committees. That led to the firing of then chief executive Gerald Majola and the restructuring of the board to include, for the first time, an independent component.

"We have come from a very difficult period and if you had asked me a year ago if there was a crisis, I would have said 'Yes'," Nenzani said immediately after being unveiled as president in 2013. "But we have now gone beyond those trying times and we are looking forward to a very promising future. We will be checking our governance structure to ensure we regain public confidence and we must remember that the role of the administration is to remain in the background while the players are at the forefront."

More than seven years on from those dark days, not nearly enough has changed.