CAPE TOWN – Dismissed Sascoc chief executive Tubby Reddy and his erstwhile colleagues Vinesh Maharaj and Jean Kelly have accused the organisation of spreading “lies” after the trio were fired following a disciplinary hearing into various allegations of misconduct.
Allegations of possible transgressions would contravene the Sascoc constitution, as well as policies and procedures relating to finance, human resources and corporate governance.
Sascoc appointed a law firm to investigate the following allegations:
1 Allegations and complaints of sexual harassment made by a staff member against the CEO
2 Awareness of the so-called ”SS Griffon” Report on alleged bugging/tapping of phones and office communication
3 Sudden changes of Sascoc’s security service provider
4 Alleged involvement of staff in irregular governance activities.
Sascoc held a disciplinary hearing from December 4-7, which was chaired by Advocate Anton Myburgh SC, but Reddy, Maharaj and Kelly did not attend.
The Sascoc board accepted Myburgh’s findings that the trio should be dismissed, and this decision took effect from January 8 this year.
But on Friday night, Reddy, Maharaj (the former chief financial officer of Sascoc) and senior manager Kelly released what they termed an “Open Letter to Sascoc Membership”, in which they stated that the Myburgh-chaired hearing was “one-sided”, and that there “is no credibility in the findings”.
Among the allegations made by the trio is that Sascoc vice-president Barry Hendricks may have had a conflict of interest with regards to the Gauteng Sports Confederation (GSC) being paid R857 500 recently, “while no other provincial sports confederation was paid any money during this period”, as Hendricks is the president of the GSC.
In terms of the sexual harassment matter, the trio said that the charges laid by the staff member concerned, Desiree Vardhan, “is in fact a total fabrication and vindictiveness on her part after her husband Size Vardhan was stopped by me (Reddy) from earning money from Sascoc in a clandestine manner” with regards to coaching programmes in KZN, while the charges were referenced from alleged incidents from 11 October 2009, and the allegations were made in 2017.
Reddy revealed a number of SMSes between him and Desiree Vardhan from 2016, in which there was no indication of sexual harassment.
The fired trio discussed the failed 2022 Durban Commonwealth Games bid as well, in which they allege that Sascoc president Gideon Sam had created a company, Nation of Champions, in which Sascoc would be a 50 percent shareholder that “would have generated huge amounts of money in the run-up to delivering Durban 2022”.
They said that Sam was the chairman of the company, his daughter one of the directors and his Sascoc personal assistant was set to be the general manager.
“This angered government and thereafter they wanted total control to deliver the Games, which the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) would not allow, it was not just about affordability,” the open letter reads.
They added that they will make a full submission to Sports Minister Thulas Nxesi’s commission of inquiry into the allegations of misconduct at Sascoc.
“Sascoc leadership is trying so hard to discredit and is in fact threatening to interdict the Minister. That is why they had to hastily conclude the disciplinary hearing without giving us a fair hearing so that we could be discredited before we get to the Commission of Enquiry,” the letter states.
* IOL Sport have requested a response from Sascoc to the open letter by Reddy, Maharaj and Kelly.