Saca slams CSA lockdown excuse

The SA Cricketers’ Association, the country’s players union‚ has strongly criticised Cricket SA for failing to meet its own set deadline to finalise proceedings into suspended CEO Thabang Moroe‚ saying the failure “defies belief”.

Friday marked exactly six months since Moroe was put on “precautionary suspension with pay” on what CSA said was “allegations of misconduct”.

Saca was reacting to a TimesLIVE report last week about CSA’s failure and its president Omphile Ramela said the organisation’s inaction with regards to Moroe’s suspension is a corporate governance blunder that will scare potential sponsors away. “CSA desperately needs to regain the confidence of the players‚ public‚ broadcasters and sponsors‚ particularly with respect to matters of governance — its failure to bring this matter to a conclusion undermines its efforts in this regard‚” said Ramela.

Saca CEO Andrew Breetzke said it was unacceptable that CSA failed to finalise Moroe’s suspension “within the sixmonth time frame promised by the CSA Board of Directors”.

“It has been reported in the media that CSA is ‘nowhere near’ finalising the matter‚ and this defies belief,” said Breetzke. The Saca boss accused the CSA board of a “lack of will” to conclude proceedings against Moroe.

“It appears as if the Covid-19 pandemic is being used as a convenient excuse for the delay‚ in spite of the fact that CSA is operationally fully functional at the moment‚” said Breetzke.

CSA blamed the failure to finalise Moroe’s suspension on the coronavirus enforced lockdown despite having signed on a number of executive and non-executive management appointments during the Covid-19 shutdown.