The composition of the board of Boxing South Africa (BSA) came into the spotlight during an appearance before parliament’s portfolio committee on sport, arts and culture on Friday.
There’s no gender balance as the all-male BSA board which resembles a boys choir is made up of chairperson Luthando Jack, Erick Nsikayezwe Sithole, Azwitamisi Nthangeni, Gilberto Martins, Sakhiwe Sodo, Suren Maharaj and Khulile Radu.
Initially, the board had six males and one female in Zandile Kabini, who resigned in August last year. Instead of recruiting a female to replace Kabini, the board went for Radu.
“The composition of the board members and what the department is doing to address gender balance in future. I did mention that we have done our best, there’s one thing where we’re trying to make sure that in the matrix of competences that have to be put together in reconstituting the new board we were aiming for a 50-50. If we miss it, maybe we shall just hit about 49 percent, but the jury is on the final signature that will be coming from the Minister,” acting director-general in the Ministry of Sport Mandisa Tshikwatamba said.
Tsepo Mhlongo, a member of the portfolio committee, said: “The issue of gender is so important, diversity is so important. We don’t need a committee led by men.”
With the term of office of the current board coming to an end, Tshikwatamba revealed that Minister of Sport Zizi Kodwa is set to announced a new team soon.
“We are currently at the final stage of this process. The report is there now, ready for the Minister when he comes back. We did our level best so that it should be signed off by end of this month and an announcement should be made around that time,” she said.
Meanwhile, Tshikwatamba also touched on what BSA should do in its efforts to collect revenue.
BSA has been relying mainly on the R19 million grant it receives from the national department of sport and boxing regulatory body wants R40m to run the fistic sport.
“And the other part was the issue of funding for Boxing SA. I think we are all together in our conversations with BSA and other entities to say if it’s by implementation of budgets as from funds that the department has we have done our best. All we have to do is step up our revenue generation measure, which is what we are nudging Boxing SA to do,” Tshikwatamba remarked.
“Ours is to make sure that there are no actions that get abandoned along the way. We shall do our best to make sure that what is of recommendation is attended to in the channels of reporting that we have between us and the entity.”
