No wriggle room left for Majola

Sunday Times Editorial: The latest installment of the crisis in South African cricket entered the realms of the absurd this week. KPMG, the forensic auditor which released its report at the weekend, found that Cricket South Africa CEO Gerald Majola had violated the Companies Act on four separate occasions.

It also found evidence of lies, obfuscation and inconsistencies regarding Majola's generous travel allowance. Yet for all this, it somehow found it impossible, in an otherwise comprehensive report, to take the next leap: making a concrete recommendation about how the CSA board should deal with its CEO and whether his infringement of the Companies Act was criminal. Instead, it pussyfooted around, recommending that the CSA board seek legal advice, and bringing in Sascoc and the ministry of Sport. Neither organisation fills one with confidence.

Indeed, KPMG's gesture to pass the buck simply delays the inevitable. Sooner or later the CSA board and its president, Mtutuzeli Nyoka, will either have to discipline Majola or have him see his day in a court of law. The time for hand wringing is over. The crisis has been spinning out of control ever since administrators at Gauteng Cricket started asking awkward questions about the status of the Indian Premier League contract in April and May of 2009. That's over two years ago. Cricket still doesn't have a sponsor to replace Standard Bank - and two home Tests against Australia in September and October are looming. One way or another, the matter needs to be sorted out.

The executive summary of the KPMG report makes for interesting reading on the subject of the IPL. So chaotic was the period prior to the IPL, in fact, that CSA didn't even bother to run the contract past its lawyers. The summary is full of examples of buck passing between Majola and the then COO, Don McIntosh.

One wonders if they actually talked to one another - with McIntosh resigning shortly afterwards. KPMG alleges further that Majola - when McIntosh was in London at the same time - negotiated his and others' bonuses by himself, having already received his annual CSA bonus by that stage. It's all very venal, and makes a mockery of Majola's counteroffensive earlier this week that some of the accusations against him are unfounded. That's nonsense. He hasn't argued the merits of the case against him. He wouldn't dare.

Majola's behaviour (and the failure of the CSA board to take responsibility for the affair) is, unfortunately, symptomatic of what passes for responsible behaviour in our society at large. People are found with their hand in the cookie jar, or found to have rigged tenders or profited from insider information, and it seems not to touch sides - as it has failed to do with Majola.

He should have resigned some time ago.