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Beresford Williams (Rooster)
- CSA is expected to provide Fundudzi’s full report to the government’s sports portfolio committee on Friday.
- The organization remains under enormous administrative pressure.
- The government had given CSA a closing date Friday to deliver the full report.
Cricket South Africa (CSA) is expected to deliver nearly 500 pages of the Fundudzi report to parliament before the close of business on Friday.
The report has been a major topic for CSA in recent weeks, and especially since the South African Sports Confederation and the Olympic Games Committee (Sascoc) started getting involved in the organization’s affairs a month ago.
Sascoc, and by extension the Department of Sports through Minister Nathi Mthethwa, are demanding to see the Fundudzi report in its entirety and CSA has received a deadline before the close of Friday to deliver the full report.
The Fundudzi report was commissioned after the organization reached a crisis point in December 2019 under the leadership of former CEO Thabang Moroe.
He has been tasked with questioning CSA leadership since 2016 in an independent effort to unravel exactly how the organization had hit the new lows it found at the end of 2019.
Moroe was suspended in December and it would be more than nine months before he was officially fired, according to the findings of the Fundudzi report that were finally handed over to CSA’s audit and risk committee on July 31.
In a summary of the report, which has now been released, Moroe is heavily implicated in a number of alleged petty crimes.
He is not alone, however, and even CSA Acting President Beresford Williams is involved in what Fundudzi said was a conflict of interest over a loan the CSA paid to the Western Province Cricket Association.
Former CSA COO Naasei Appiah and former finance committee chair Iqbal Khan also appear throughout the report, and it has left the government wanting to analyze the findings in their entirety.
CSA, thus far and with the advice of Bowmans attorneys, has resisted showing the full report to anyone for fear of how that could affect any future legal dispute with anyone involved.
But the government, through its sports portfolio committee and its president Beauty Dlulane, does not settle for a simple summary.
When all parties came together at Tuesday’s sports portfolio committee meeting during a Zoom call, Dlulane and the rest of the MPs harshly criticized CSA and its leadership for “disrespecting” by not releasing the full report.
On Friday afternoon, Williams confirmed Sport24 that the plan was to publish the report at the end of the day.
Sport24 further understands that the report will only be delivered to the portfolio committee.
CSA is fighting for its independence, and Sascoc and the government have stated that they want the entire CSA board, as well as its interim CEO, Kugandrie Govender, to step aside as a Sascoc task force seeks to remedy troubled leadership from the organization.
If that happens, then CSA runs the risk of being punished by the International Cricket Council (ICC), which could ban the Proteas from playing in international tournaments and tours due to government interference that plays too big of a role in the running of CSA.
