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Mali: Nyoka not a team player

Pretoria - Former Cricket SA president Ray Mali told a ministerial inquiry into cricket on Friday that fellow former CSA boss Mtutuzeli Nyoka was not a team player.

"If things do not go his (Nyoka's) way he just decides he's not going to be part of this," Mali said in Pretoria.

"He throws his toys out of the cot, to put it bluntly.

"A typical example, on September 8, 2010, we had a meeting in Sandton - a board meeting where he opened that meeting, and after eight minutes he walked out because there were issues in the agenda relating to him.

"We asked him to stay so that we could ask him questions on these issues. He said his lawyer asked him not to entertain any questions from us.

"That is the type of attitude that worries us as leaders."

Nyoka was ousted by the CSA board for the second time in October, after calling repeatedly for an investigation into CSA's finances and bonuses paid to CSA staff and executives.

Mali said the decision to give Nyoka a vote of no confidence was not taken lightly.

"This was not a knee jerk reaction. We all err and make mistakes and talk about them and move forward," Mali said.

"It was a process and it was not because of the bonus issue that we had to ask him to stand down. It was simply because he couldn’t get on well with the board.

"The game is about partnerships. You can’t play an innings without a partner and you can't have anything going without the others - it has to be a collective effort and team work."

Mali said former CSA remuneration committee chairman Paul Harris, who had also called for an independent audit, should shoulder the blame for bonus payments not being declared.

The R4.7 million paid to CSA staff for hosting the 2009 Indian Premier League (IPL) tournament was well earned, Mali said.

"Knowing the bonuses right from 2003, the processes, I do not know much about that, but I believe those people, the money, they got it fair and square.

"I blame the chairman of Remco for this, Paul Harris. We are not there on the board as policemen, we are on the board to apply corrective measures.

"Once you are head of a committee you are not the chief of police, you are there to educate people about the process, how it is done.

"I fault Paul Harris as the man who should have explained to everybody."

Mali said CSA staff should have been paid even more than the bonuses they received for their work on the IPL.

"Those bonuses, they are reasonable. In fact, they deserve more because of the success of the IPL, brought to us with a month’s notice."

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