Cricket South Africa to hand over forensic report to parliament portfolio committee
Cricket South Africa (CSA) have committed to presenting the South African Parliament's portfolio committee on sports, arts and culture with the full forensic report - which it used to fire former CEO Thabang Moroe - by Friday. In a two-hour meeting on Tuesday morning, the Committee expressed their "disappointment" with CSA for the continued delays in making the report public. It also demanded access to the report before addressing any other issue related to the organisation.
Under that pressure, CSA independent board director Marius Schoeman promised to step down from the board if the report is not delivered to the committee by the end of the week.
While it is unclear whether the committee members, who are members of parliament, will be required to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) - as has been the case for everyone who has seen the report so far - CSA's legal team will interact with parliament's lawyers prior to the report being released.
"The protocol to follow is that Members' Council will confirm that the board may release this report to you. It will be released in hard copy, by Fundudzi, by Friday, close of business, 16h30," Schoeman said. "If this is not done by 16h30 on Friday, I will resign."
It is significant that the report itself will be sent to parliament by Fundudzi - the forensic services company that compiled the report - and not CSA's lawyers, where the report is being kept. That is to ensure that the parliamentary committee receives a copy of report that they can be sure is not tampered with. This comes after several members of the committee said they suspected CSA of hiding information given the lengthy delays. Again, Schoeman gave a personal guarantee that will not be the case. "There is absolutely no way I will stand by to allow that anything be removed [from the report]," Schoeman said.
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CSA released the summary of the report, which contained several damning findings of administrative and financial irregularity and breaches of the Companies' Act by Moroe, on Monday morning. Schoeman confirmed that acting president Beresford Williams, who was present at Tuesday's meeting, and board member Donovan May, are also implicated in the report, albeit to a lesser degree. The summary also detailed an incident in which they entire board had failed in their fiduciary duties, which suggests that any punitive action CSA may take could be wide-ranging.
For that reason - and that litigation against any implicated individuals could yet take place - CSA have refused to release the report in full to anyone other than three of their independent board members, the 14 presidents of the provincial affiliates on condition that they sign NDA's and the country's sports minister Nathi Mthethwa, who was not present on Tuesday. Mthethwa has already instructed CSA to give the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) full access to the report, but CSA have not yet done so, which could lead to Mthethwa taking action against CSA.
The pending issue of access to the forensic report was the only matter discussed by the parliamentary committee on Tuesday, forcing topics such as transformation, South Africa's blank fixture list - which, to date, shows no international or domestic matches for the 2020-21 summer - and CSA's finances to take a backseat. The committee will meet with CSA again once they have read the report.