Sascoc and minister on a rocky road

● It appears as if the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) is headed for a collision course with the minister of Sport Tokozile Xasa because of constitutional differences.

Sascoc yesterday insisted they do not object to the minister’s recommendations contained in a report produced from the ministerial inquiry into the affairs of the organisation, but that they want further engagement on certain constitutional issues because some of the items are sacrosanct to them.

On Friday, Xasa gave the Sascoc board until the end of next April to implement the wide-ranging recommendations of the report at the organisation, which has been riddled with issues of poor governance.

Reacting to the report yesterday, the contents of which Xasa disclosed at a press conference on Friday, Sascoc president Gideon Sam said they want to further engage Xasa on issues around how the future presidents of the organisation are going to be appointed.

The report recommended future presidents must be independent, appointed by an independent committee and have no affiliation to any sport and recreation body, in contradiction to Sascoc’s view that he or she must be elected by the general assembly.

“We have to sit down and say are we going to agree or not on the issue of how a president must be elected,” Sam said.

“We will engage the minister and the person she is going to appoint to oversee the process. If you are talking about an electoral college, we agree.”