• CSA's interim board on Friday handed over their report to Sports Minister Nathi Mthethwa eight months after they were charged with cleaning up the game.
• Mthethwa confirmed that the handover marked the end of his involvement in cricket following his step-in during the cricket crisis last year.
• The new CSA board will have to deal with leftover legal matters, such as former CEO Thabang Moroe's legal arbitration, who sought a settlement pay-out.

Cricket South Africa's (CSA's) interim board on Friday handed over their report to Sports Minister Nathi Mthethwa eight months after they were charged with cleaning up the game.

Mthethwa gave the interim board, initially chaired by Judge Zak Yacoob, a nine-point mandate that eventual chair Stavros Nicolaou presente feedback on.

If enacted at Saturday's annual general meeting without hindrance, the interim board would have succeeded in delivering a new CSA memorandum of incorporation (MoI) and with it a new majority-independent board, per Judge Chris Nicholson's 2012 recommendations.

The CSA AGM is nine months overdue, while resistance to co-opting Nicholson's recommendations faced opposition for nine years, right up to the last, and might still need South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) approval.

Mthethwa said the handover marked the end of his involvement in the cricket crisis, which has dragged since former CEO Thabang Moroe's suspension in December 2019.

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"The journey to this day has been a mixture of both challenges and opportunities," Mthethwa said.

"These were to be expected in the task to introduce a new era in cricket. The report touches on every issue that was a response to the public outcry.

"These included good overall governance and aspects of all areas of transformation in its broadest form.

"The recommendations build on work that was in progress as well as introducing new ideas. This report handover marks the end of my involvement in the process and the tenure of the interim board as they pass the baton to the new board."

Although the MoI, AGM and Nicholson recommendations look to be completed - so too most work on the Fundudzi Forensic Services report, and domestic cricket structure - some thorny issues will now burden the new board.

CSA dismissed former company secretary Welsh Gwaza following a six-month hearing concluded this week after finding him guilty on various charges, including gross insubordination and breaches of the Companies Act.

Disciplinary proceedings against former acting CEO and suspended Chief Commercial Officer Kugandrie Govender await Advocate Terry Motau's findings.

However, the noose around the new board's neck is the Moroe saga. The former CEO challenged his dismissal in legal arbitration and sought a settlement pay-out after being sacked with three years left on his contract.

The new board will assume the burden of closing the outstanding legal matters and the appointment of a new CEO. Pholetsi Moseki is currently acting CEO.

"We don't see any hindrance to the appointment of a new CEO. We see this as one of the first tasks, if not the first that the new board will have to engage in," said Nicolaou.

Interim board member Judith February said: "The Moroe matter was inherited. It has now gone to arbitration, and that needs to wend its way.

"There's not much one can do about that. However, it was also one of the matters which we took a decision, in principle, that it wasn't right for settlement, given the issues raised in the Fundudzi report.

"The individual (Moroe) is dismissed from the organization; therefore, there's no bar on a new CEO."

Source: News24