“He believes that every word that comes out of his mouth is the biblical truth, and if anybody begins to disagree with a word he says you are greeted with a great deal of anger.” - Zak Yacoob on Omphile Ramela.
TELFORD VICE | Cape Town
CSA’s interim board has confirmed the removal of Omphile Ramela, one of its two recused members. But a defiant Ramela is adamant that he remains part of the board.
The episode is sure to add to the growing dismay internationally about the state of the administration of the game in South Africa, what with CSA’s acting chief executive and company secretary suspended and England abandoning their men’s white-ball tour over Covid fears. And that’s only since December 1.
“It was not an easy decision but the interim board had no other option but to do so,” a CSA release explaining Ramela’s fate said on Tuesday, adding that neither he nor his attorney had attended the meeting where the decision was taken, nor responded to notices about the meeting. “The board unanimously decided [with one abstention] that Mr. Omphile Ramela, having not appeared to give any reasons why he should not be removed, is removed as a director on the CSA interim board,” the release said.
Asked for comment, Ramela told Cricbuzz: “I am still very much a director and member of the CSA interim board. No authorised personnel nor structure has removed me from the board, so there is absolutely nothing to challenge about my directorship. Yes, some members of the interim board have attempted to hold the organisation hostage, including locking out some of us from board meetings. But these will soon be dealt with. I remain a director and am still continuing with my work.”
Ramela stepped down as president of the South African Cricketers’ Association to be part of the board, which was appointed on November 17 in the wake of the elected board — which had presided over more than three years of mismanagement — resigned in the face of mounting pressure, including from government.
But it seems Ramela and the interim board could not get on. His recusal along with that of Xolani Vonya was reported on Wednesday, and Zak Yacoob, the former constitutional court judge who chairs the board, laid into Ramela during on online press conference on Thursday: “He has been generally obstructive in relation to board matters, generally defending the indefensible, basically refusing to accept the majority. He seems to make a distinction between what is right and majority decisions, and if he feels that majority decisions are wrong that he can continue to fight about them for hours and hours.
“He does not have the discipline to accept majority decisions. He has been obstructive in relation to every difficult decision we have had to take, and it has been virtually impossible to deal with him. In a three-month period [the length of the board’s appointment], if meetings last for hours and hours, to deal with obstructive people who keep saying they don’t understand this and they don’t understand that when things are completely explained, then the board is not going to be able to finish its work. We judged that the chance of finishing our work was lessened considerably by these obstructive tactics. I suspect that the obstructive tactics have been specifically designed to hold up the board, so that we can do very little in the three months.
“We spent two hours talking about whether he would accept majority rule. He says that when he says things are right, they are right. And therefore everyone must listen to him. He’s a young man. He believes that every word that comes out of his mouth is the biblical truth, and if anybody begins to disagree with a word he says you are greeted with a great deal of anger.”
Vonya was recused on the strength of serious allegations made against him by Easterns Cricket, the CSA provincial affiliate of which he was president before joining the board. Easterns suspended him in May. He was reinstated pending an investigation and resigned in October. He is believed to be seeking legal advice over the action taken against him by the interim board.
Among the seven remaining board members, only André Odendaal and Haroon Lorgat, former chief executives of the Western Province Cricket Association and CSA, have track records as cricket administrators. Asked if Ramela and Vonya would be replaced, Yacoob said: “We’ll try and agree replacements with the members council {nominally CSA’s highest authority]. If we don’t, the seven of us will simply carry on. We are not going to waste our time with side issues.”
Cricket can ill afford such unseemly squabbling, especially the day after the announcement that Kugandrie Govender had been suspended as CSA acting chief executive and chief commercial officer. That followed England going home on Thursday because of positive tests for the virus with half their six matches unplayed, which was preceded by the suspension of CSA company secretary Welsh Gwaza on December 1.
Individually, some of those developments will be seen as positive. Collectively, they paint a picture of chaos. Neither the public, the sponsors nor sports minister Nathi Mthethwa — whose intervention led to the interim board’s appointment — will want that. But it seems things have to get worse before there can be hope for improvement. How much worse is a question no-one has dared ask.
First published by Cricbuzz.
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