Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Sport, Arts and Culture has unanimously resolved to recommend to Minister Gayton McKenzie that the Athletics South Africa (ASA) board be dissolved due to persistent failures within the organisation.
The committee has found that the federation has failed in its fiduciary duties and is no longer capable of safeguarding the interests of athletes.
The decision comes after a contentious parliamentary sitting on Tuesday, where ASA officials were interrogated on several issues, most notably the failure to pay winners of ASA-sanctioned marathons in Mpumalanga and Soweto.
Chairperson of the committee, Joe McGluwa, has warned that ASA is on the brink of collapse due to weak financial controls and a breakdown in leadership.
“For me, it’s clear that most, if not all, of these federations are being used as a running block, as a setting for their business plans. You find that within federations its families, its friends and in that particular arena, you also find that it’s the son and a friend who are the tenderpreneurs for the federation. But we say as parliament, we are not going to be silent and we are not going to accept any excuse. It is time for answers now, and for us it’s about the athletes,” he says.
—SABC—
