With Cricket South Africa (CSA) and the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) just short of a war declaration, it’s worth going back to the president who presided over the embattled cricket organisation over the past seven years.
Chris Nenzani’s exit was too meek, too lily-livered considering the staunch defences he put up for the organisation over the past 18 months.
It came as a surprise when, during a presentation to parliament’s sports portfolio committee, he expressed regret at having taken a year’s extension of his term.
“When the members’ council asked me to stay on for an additional year‚ I agreed‚ but looking back‚ I regret taking that decision. I shouldn’t have agreed. It was because of how I view leadership‚ which I see as an obligation to serve once you’ve been elected to a position. When they say ‘please continue’‚ you subject yourself to that directive,” were Nenzani’s legendary words.
Based on this, his exit in August shouldn’t have been tame, but it was. His forward defence in the face of intense public criticism was impenetrable, but his self-inflicted dismissal was limp-wristed.
Since he said he was a leader who wants to serve, why didn’t he stay on and face the heat of the fire he helped start with regards to the report? Nenzani was supposed to face up to the media at the September 5 annual general meeting. That’s yet to happen.
He surely should have stuck it out instead of gifting cricket with the increasingly inept, diffident and constantly ‘engaging’ administrative block that is Beresford Williams.
The forensic report, the one CSA have padlocked and cemented with a prohibitive non-disclosure agreement, was one of the key reasons that particular meeting has yet to take place.
Once it’s released, the contents of that thick document will tell us why. In the mean-time we need to go back to Mr Nenzani and the dereliction of duty in his abrupt resignation.
Since he said he was of service, he surely should have stuck it out instead of gifting cricket with the increasingly inept, diffident and constantly “engaging” administrative block that is Beresford Williams.
Williams, like an old-school front-ranker, has been happy to engage till the cows come home.
It’s a Stalingrad approach that may do his presidential aspirations “a world of good”, since it could be seen that he’s taking the member’s council and the board’s mandate at all times.
The past two weeks have taught us that he’s incapable of leading CSA. Not that he ever was.
If he were a clear-minded vice-president with the best interests of the game at heart, he would have stopped the rot.
Back to Nenzani: at what point will he be summoned by Sascoc to answer about his dodgy stewardship that’s allowed CSA’s ship to hit the rocks so badly?
Here are things one has to remember with regards to Nenzani’s reign: Thabang Moroe went from vice-president to acting chief executive officer to assuming the role on a permanent basis.
The administrative bunglings took place under his watch and surely he would have known about the NDA, even though he’d promised that parts of the report would be made public.
This leads to the next question: what parts of the report were going to be made public? Was it going to be the part of Moroe’s findings or the board’s clear inability to do their fiduciary duty?
An organisation doesn’t just fail at the hands of a CEO, but there are moving parts like the president, the board and the member’s council in CSA’s case.
Nenzani, though, is completely and fully culpable in CSA’s mess and can’t be left to laze away in obscurity after he helped destroy CSA’s house.
He can’t be allowed to keep quiet, not when he aided and abetted CSA’s destruction.
