The Central Gauteng Lions annual general meeting is at risk of going ahead without members from the Black African Crickets Clubs (BACC) due to a fresh round of racial tensions.
The BACC is advocating for transformation targets to be achieved by having black Africans as the majority on the Central Gauteng Lions board. However, the BACC is fearing that a recent resolution taken to have an equal split on the board, will go against the organisation’s objectives.
The current board comprises 12 members, of which five are independent. They were selected based on their line of expertise. The remaining seven spots are filled by the members of the CGL.
The BACC wants three of those to be filled by Black Africans. This argument is also based on recommendations by two retired judges who found that Black Africans should enjoy the majority of the seven seats.
However, this was defied in a recent resolution which is likely to favour the Coloured and Indian constituency and their White counterparts. This as clubs voted to have an equal split between the three constituencies and a floating seventh member. However, former board member Ntsongo Sibiya, who together with Koketso Muller resigned from their positions earlier this week ahead of the AGM, rejects this call.
“If you consider the voting clubs, that voting structure is not equal. You still find the majority being White or Coloured and Indian. Clubs of the 50 clubs affiliated to CGL, only nine are black African and most people will say you are the minority. The issue with that is you cannot look at it in that way because you are failing to recognise history; you are failing to recognise that it is by a systematic way that we end up with the black Africans being the minority as clubs are concerned, even if they are the majority in the country,” says Sibiya.
Sibiya argues that transformation had not been fully achieved and is an ongoing process. He says the equal split with a floating member is painting the wrong picture that the playing field is level.
“All we are seeing is that there is a clear move towards Black Africans being the minority within the board despite recommendations that we have,” says Sibiya.
The Gauteng Lions have been successful under the leadership of Jack Madiseng, who will be stepping down from his position as the president and will not stand for re-election on Saturday. He replaced suspended Cricket South Africa President Thabang Moroe in 2016 as Gauteng Lions president. It’s also alleged that Moroe’s issues at CSA are being used to support the argument for an equal split.
“CSA remains its own company, so does CGL and any other union. CGL cannot be judged on what Thabang did or did not do and as much as the name keeps coming up we would like to put it categorically that this has nothing with Thabang. It has to do with making sure that the recommendations of the judge and the people, that are a clear majority in the country, are represented,” says Sibiya.
