'Chuene friendship' costs Komphela dearly

Outspoken ANC MP Butana Komphela is leaving his powerful position as chairman of parliament's sports portfolio committee.

The controversial MP is set to join the Free State provincial government as MEC for police, roads and transport. Komphela confirmed that he would take the oath tomorrow to serve in the Free State executive where he will be replacing Thabo Manyoni, who is now the executive mayor of the Mangaung Metro Municipality.

But several sources who oversaw Komphela's move, said he was being pushed for failing to take on former Athletics SA boss Leonard Chuene. This was after Chuene embarrassed the nation with his clumsy handling of athlete Caster Semenya's gender testing debacle in 2009.

Under Komphela, the committee was seen as too soft on Chuene, which was in contrast with the tough stance the government and the ANC had adopted.

Chuene and his management team were sacked by the sports mother body SA Sports Confederations and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) for their poor handling of the debacle. Insiders said Komphela's final blow came last week when five opposition MPs walked out of a committee meeting at which he had invited Chuene to make a presentation on his dismissal. The MPs stormed out when Komphela refused to entertain their objections to Chuene's appearance because it had not been discussed with them.

His detractors attributed this to a "friendship" the two men enjoyed. But Komphela refuted claims that he was being removed for protecting Chuene.

"It's not true, the issue of Leornard Chuene has nothing to do with this. If there (was) no vacancy as a result of this MEC who has gone to the metro, there would have never been such a move. It was never a decision informed by the issue of Chuene, in fact the ANC would have loved to see me finalising the issue of Leonard Chuene if you care to know," he said.

An official in the Department of Sport, who had to deal with the fallout, said it had been established that Komphela was the one ANC official who Chuene had claimed to have spoken to about the Semenya issue. "The person who was deeply involved in that thing ... was none other than Butana Komphela," said the official, who asked not to be named.