Provincial bodies call for board to step down
09 October 2009 (14:27)
Leonard Chuene © Gallo Images
Three of Athletics South Africa’s 17 provincial affiliates called for the entire ASA board to step down on Friday.
The Boland, Eastern Province and Western Province provincial athletics associations said in a joint statement that the board, along with ASA senior management, should "take collective responsibility "for the Caster Semenya gender fiasco and “resign with immediate effect.”
The three bodies said they had called upon ASA last week to “explain various matters relating to an incident which occurred at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin”.
But the federation had yet to respond to their collective call, the associations said on Friday, and ASA’s failure to do so “highlights the lack of accountability within South African athletics and the failure of corporate governance on the part of the national federation.”
At the global championships in August, ASA team doctor Harold Adams, also the president of Boland Athletics advised team management to withdraw Semenya from the women’s 800m event in light of results he had received from gender tests done on the athlete in Pretoria earlier that month.
ASA president Leonard Chuene and the team managers chose to ignore Adams’s advice and allowed Semenya to run. On return from Berlin, Chuene and ASA general manager Molatelo Malehopo, who had ordered the tests done on Semenya in Pretoria, repeatedly denied that the tests had been conducted.
In a press conference last month Chuene eventually admitted they had lied, but insisted they had done so to protect Semenya.
On September 24 ASA called a special general meeting in Kempton Park to discuss the actions taken by the federation and it was widely expected that the provincial affiliates would give Chuene a vote of no confidence.
But Chuene’s place at the head of the board was never discussed in the meeting. Afterwards, senior provincial officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Sapa they had been “too scared” to stand up against Chuene due to his political connections.
They added that many association presidents had been placed in their positions by Chuene and he had warned them “if I go, you go”.
But the Boland, Western Province and Eastern Province associations have officially called for the entire board to share the blame with Chuene who has taken much of it upon himself - and step down.
“The (ASA) board and senior management have not taken responsibility for the events which have occurred, choosing to rather allow the president of ASA to bear that responsibility,” the affiliates said.
“It needs to be pointed out that the president of ASA is, in terms of its constitution, a non-executive president and that he alone cannot take all the blame.”
The associations also said that ASA had not openly shared other “relevant information” with the affiliates.
“For example,” the statement said, “the 2008 financial statements have never been sent to ASA’s members despite the provisions of the ASA Constitution and the Companies Act.”
The affiliates added it was worrying that ASA board member Hendrick Mokganyetsi had been accused of disrupting an athletes’ meeting in Pretoria last week and that Mokganyetsi had accused meeting organiser Geraldine Pillay of racism after she blamed some of the people with him for showing up drunk.
Chuene has repeatedly accused the IAAF of racism for conducting gender tests on Semenya, which were done a little over a month after ASA had conducted their own tests without informing Semenya beforehand.
“It is disturbing that the issue of race has entered into this matter,” the associations said.
"Race is irrelevant to the current matter, which relates to the failure of corporate governance at Athletics South Africa.
"There is no question that any specific members, or specific groups, of the ASA board or senior management are being called upon for an explanation.
“The entire senior structure is standing together and must take collective responsibility, regardless of race or other affiliation.The quest for a non-racial country and non-racial sport is as relevant now as it was 20 years ago. Any attempt by anyone, from whatever political background, to bring race into this matter must be rejected.”
The three affiliates also called for ASA to “apologise unconditionally” to the SA government, the public, and Semenya.
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