A failure by directors to declare bonus payments had no financial impact on Cricket SA, an official told a ministerial inquiry yesterday.
Nassei Appiah, CSA’s chief financial officer, told the inquiry committee in Pretoria he had made submissions when he worked for auditors Deloitte during an audit of CSA for the 2009/10 financial year.
“In assessing whether there was reportable irregularity we had to assess whether the transactions we were dealing with involved management or directors, we ticked yes,” Appiah said.
“The second step was whether it had caused any financial loss to the company, we ticked no. It did not.”
Appiah confirmed R4.7 million in bonuses paid to members of CSA staff, including CSA CEO Gerald Majola and former CSA COO Don McIntosh, had not been disclosed.
The bonuses were paid as part of income from the Indian Premier League (IPL) tournament which CSA hosted in 2009.
“One of the standard audit procedures was always to give the directors the emolument declaration form to sign,” Appiah said.
“We did do that in 2009 and 2010 and it was completed and the IPL bonuses were never enclosed. The only way we can arrive at completeness of that disclosure is for management to complete that schedule of amounts received. We were uncomfortable around that aspect of it because we felt it should have been disclosed.”
Emoluments should be completed by directors in terms of the Companies Act, Appiah said, and it was the responsibility of the directors, not the auditors, which would have allowed Deloitte to disclose it in that manner. But Appiah said it was concluded there were no reportable irregularities.
He told the committee that R68 million had not gone missing from CSA’s coffers, as previously alleged by former CSA president Mtutuzeli Nyoka.
The money was held as running costs for the IPL.
“Funds had been transferred from the BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) which was about R425m,” Appiah said.
“CSA had incurred expenditure on behalf of the BCCI, including the hosting fees of about R435m. So the balance sheets reflected an asset of an amount due from the BCCI of R10m.
“We have a balance sheet for 2009 and 2010, with 2009 showing a liability of R74m and 2010 showing an asset of R10m. Someone (Nyoka) took the difference between the two and alleged that the movement was missing funds.”
Appiah said Nyoka had made false assumptions. “If you had to recompute the movement in the two years, you actually had to add the two because one was an asset and one was a liability,” he said.
“So the movement was actually R84m, not R64m as stated in the records. It eventually became R68m and there is nothing correct about those assumptions.” - Pretoria News Weekend