Publications
Partners
Athletics South Africa (ASA) has announced that it will challenge the rejection of the nomination of ASA president, Aleck Skhosana for the presidency of SASCOC.
In a statement released to the media on Wednesday, ASA commented that the reason given for Skhosana's rejection was as a result of SASCOC not receiving a certificate of good standing endorsing him, something the athletics governing body says they did submit.
Skhosana is quoted in the statment saying: “At this stage, I will not bore you with factual details of prior attempts to exclude me as ASA President from the SASCOC board, suffice to say that it is well-known and in the public domain."
“Indeed, after 2016 elections I was elected into the SASCOC board and in January 2017 I was co-opted and then expelled in May” said Skhosana.
“I took the matter to arbitration where they ruled in my favour and I was re-reinstated around 2018. I am currently the acting second vice president elected to the SASCOC board in December 2019.
“This is, therefore, a similar debacle to what transpired in 2016 when certain nominees were declared to be ineligible but this was resolved by the SASCOC council when it ruled that all nominees were eligible to stand for election. Surely this should be the case again,” concluded Skhosana.
Read the full statement below:
"On 6 March, SASCOC’s nominations committee’s publicly announced its decision to declare Skhosana ineligible for election either as SASCOC president or a member of the SASCOC board.
The basis of the commission’s decision appears to be that ASA did not lodge a certificate of good standing certifying that Skhosana is a member in good standing with ASA. The SASCOC decision was made despite the fact that the ASA Board and Council had endorsed the nomination and had brought this to the attention of council members of SASCOC.
The fact is that ASA did indeed prepare and lodge the required certificate in time with the auditors. This was accepted and confirmed when the full pack of supporting documents was hand-delivered to SASCOC auditors, Mazars who acknowledged receipt thereof. It is thus a mystery how the certificate of good standing could have disappeared from the pack delivered to the auditors.
ASA has since re-sent a copy of the said certificate to Mazars and the nominations committee and made submissions why he should be eligible to stand for the SASCOC elections. To date hereof, there has been no response from the auditors or the nominations committee.
One can only suspect foul play on the part of those opposed to ASA’s nomination, and the prospect of Skhosana being elected by the SASCOC council. Of course, this is nothing new or unexpected.
“At this stage, I will not bore you with factual details of prior attempts to exclude me as ASA president from the SASCOC board, suffice to say that it is well-known and in the public domain.
“Indeed, after 2016 elections I was elected into the SASCOC board and in January 2017 I was co-opted and then expelled in May” said Skhosana. “I took the matter to arbitration where they ruled in my favour and I was re-reinstated around 2018. I am currently the acting second vice president elected to the SASCOC board in December 2019.
“This is, therefore, a similar debacle to what transpired in 2016 when certain nominees were declared to be ineligible but this was resolved by the SASCOC council when it ruled that all nominees were eligible to stand for election. Surely this should be the case again!”
ASA believes that the SASCOC council must decide who should lead it by popular vote and not condone the manipulation of the elections by those seeking to gain access to or remain in power.
“I appeal to members of council to confirm that all those nominated must be eligible to stand for election either as president or as a member of the SASCOC board. Finally, I would like to confirm once again that I am still standing for the positions I was nominated for by my federation and others to the SASCOC board.”
The fact that there is about four candidates who have been disqualified, suggests that the process is contaminated. The question, therefore, is how many people really applied and how many people were rejected."
- Athletics South Africa
