Boxing boss looks back at 100 days in office

OPERATIONAL issues remain unresolved by the board of Boxing SA (BSA), and Tsholofelo Lejaka has acknowledged that a lot still needs to be done to steer the sport towards the desired direction. Yesterday marked 100 days since Lejaka, 40, , was appointed BSA’s CEO. BSA spent almost R5-million defending court cases in the past year, but Lejaka’s administration was able to deliver clean audit.

Operational issues still remain a thorn in BSA’s flesh. This includes the body dealing decisively with lawbreakers such as PBL organiser Dicksy Ngqula, promoters S’Phatho Handi and Andile Sidinile, who owe boxers and officials millions of rands for service rendered.

Said Lejaka: “The past 100 days have been a mixed bag of highs and lows, excitement and disappointment, relief and anxiety – but certainly, progress all the way.”

He said the previous year’s annual report received an unqualified auditor-general’s opinion before the sports portfolio committee last week.

“It is an outcome of all integrated processes we undertook with our management team, guided by our internal committees and overseen by the board,” said Lejaka.

“A well-administered and stable regulator is however only as good as a sector it regulates. At the moment, there is however still a lot to be done on that front. In August, we consolidated the records of our licensees for 2016 – the total stood at 1 040 licensees with more than 614 being boxers and 91 being women across different categories of licensees.”

Lejaka said at face value, all looked like a rosy picture, however, a closer look spells out even more challenges for BSA.

“It demands of us to work even harder to ensure that our licensees are better protected and professionally served.”