What’s under Newlands’ big hole?

“When you owe somebody R81-million you don’t fight with them.” - a dim view of the WPCA’s behaviour towards CSA.

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

NABEAL Dien was still in the bubble of his first holiday in 20 years when he turned on his phone as he waited for his luggage at Cape Town International three Sundays ago.

That bubble never knew what hit it. Dien, the Western Province Cricket Association (WPCA) chief executive, knew only too well.

“I went home, I showered and I came straight [to Newlands] and started calling people,” he said this week.

Cricket South Africa (CSA) had put the WPCA under administration because they had been “conducting business under distressed conditions in relation to, inter alia, the WPCA’s administrative, governance and financial affairs”.

Five weeks earlier the WPCA were declared, by CSA, their leading affiliate in financial affairs and second in governance terms.

Last Thursday CSA chief executive Thabang Moroe mooted moving the New Year test by sketching the nightmare scenario of thousands of sloshed, sunburnt Barmy Army members disappearing into the gaping foundations of a major construction project at Newlands.

“What they referred to as a big hole is no longer a big hole,” Dien said. “It was a big hole.

“The slab of the first floor is already being laid [near the Kelvin Grove End]. It’s far from being a big hole.”

So, what happened?

A popular theory is that CSA didn’t like the idea of the WPCA becoming less dependent on the national body, which the success of the construction at Newlands — sponsored by Standard Bank and Sanlam and worth up to R800-million — could achieve.

That, this version goes, prompted CSA to call in the R81-million they had loaned the WPCA to help finance the building.

Given CSA’s meddling in other affiliates’ affairs — Moroe was on the interview panel that chose Gauteng’s new chief executive, Jono Leaf-Wright — and the rapid centralisation of power in Moroe’s hands, it isn’t difficult to see why that narrative has formed.

Less prominent is the role the WPCA board have played, which is highlighted by the fact that Dien remains in his position.

“We put out fires and everything’s back on track in terms of the project,” he said.

There will be concern that an elected structure has been replaced by an appointee chosen by an organisation that labours under a blemished governance record.

But all that’s changed at Newlands is that Dien now reports not to the provincial board but to his predecessor, André Odendaal, who was in the position for 10 years and with whom Dien worked as the WPCA general manager.

Had CSA wanted to be properly nasty they could have installed someone far more hostile to the WPCA’s interests and alien to the province and its workings.

Insiders say the WPCA could have avoided their fate by being less aggressive in their dealings with CSA on the issue.

“When you owe somebody R81-million you don’t fight with them; that’s a stupid thing to do,” a source said.

Asked whether the WPCA board were considering legal action, what form that action might take, and if CSA’s actions were considered unfair, their province’s president, Nick Kock, did not respond.

For Dien, the show goes on: “You don’t get gain without some pain. Unfortunately, I’m here and having to deal with the pain for the moment. But there will be gain for future generations.”

First published by the Sunday Times.