Johanessburg - Cricket South Africa will conduct formal inquiries into the conduct of Graeme Smith and Mark Boucher based on the findings of the Social Justice and Nation Building report.
Smith, CSA’s Director of Cricket and Boucher, the Proteas men’s team’s head coach were both fingered in the report and accused of prejudice and acting in a discriminatory manner.
“CSA respects the SJN process and we are engaging with the report in detail and holistically,” said Lawson Naidoo, the chairman of CSA’s Board. The Board met at the weekend to discuss the 235 page report that was made public last week.
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“We have taken careful cognisance of the recommendation of the Ombudsman, that in appropriate cases, a further process should be instituted to test the evidence and submissions made, and we have decided that this is indeed the appropriate route to follow,” says CSA Board chairperson, Lawson Naidoo.
“We hope this will give implicated parties a fair opportunity to be heard so that finality can be achieved, and any final findings can then be acted on,” he says.
Boucher was strongly criticised by the Office of the Transformation Ombudsman, which conducted the SJN hearings, for trying to excuse or give reasons for calling his former teammate Paul Adams, ‘brown s***,’ as part of team song when the pair were in the SA side in the late 1990s. The Transformation Ombudsman, Adv. Dumisa Ntsebeza, said in Boucher’s case it appeared that if he had undergone diversity and transformation training, that he was “apathetic towards diversity and transformation.”
Smith’s case involved his not wanting to work with CSA’s former CEO, Thabang Moroe, who was subsequently dismissed based on the findings of a forensic audit. The SJN found that Smith, in demanding not to answer to Moroe when he was appointed, “evinces his racial bias against black leadership at CSA.”
Smith, through his lawyer, David Becker, later slammed that assertion, stating that the fact that he’d worked under current acting CEO, Pholetsi Moseki and under other black officials on the board and Members Council was proof that he wasn’t biased.
The inquiries into the pair’s conduct, will be conducted by independent, legal professionals and will be done in the new year.
Smith and Boucher, will continue in their current roles for the duration of the Indian team’s tour.
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