The Democratic Alliance (DA) calls on the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) to appoint an independent task team to oversee the administrative intervention at Cricket South Africa (CSA) in light of their unprecedented move to place CSA under administration.
SASCOC has reportedly decided to intervene in the affairs of CSA following instances of maladministration and malpractice. While any action to get CSA back on track is laudable, the DA is cautious of SASCOC’s involvement, because the entity is itself besieged with internal administrative challenges.
Therefore, SASCOC cannot simply be given free reign to oversee this process, given their reputation of unstable, chaotic and dysfunctional leadership which has affected its ability to deliver South Africa’s elite athletes to international sports arenas.
It is for this reason that the DA calls for an independent task team to head up this administrative intervention. This task team should comprise of reputable and credible persons with legal and sports backgrounds who will be responsible for facilitating, monitoring and making recommendations which SCA should deliver on. The Parliament’s Portfolio Committee of Sports, Arts and Culture, must also be afforded an opportunity to engage the findings once the task team has concluded its investigation.
The DA also calls on CSA to immediately table the long-overdue forensic report into the organisation’s administration before the Portfolio Committee. We have long questioned the rationale behind the CSA board’s refusal to hand over the forensic report so that the contents thereof can be properly and justly scrutinized.
While SASCOC is within their rights to intervene at CSA, we are wary of government’s intervention in cricket. It is our hope that an independent task team, if appointed, will help CSA regain the trust of all its stakeholders, especially South Africa’s cricketers and fans.
It is of utmost importance for the ongoing issues at CSA to be addressed – for that to happen we need an independent and reputable people to oversee the process, not the compromised SASCOC.