By Monwabisi Jimlongo
With the term of the board of Boxing South Africa (BSA) coming to an end, its chairperson Luthando Jack wished for continuity during his closing remarks after they appeared before parliament’s portfolio committee on sport, arts and culture on Friday.
After Jack and his fellow BSA board members were asked a number of questions, which they evaded a number of times, he plainly asked for continuity. Jack was also a member of the previous BSA board.
“We want to thank all members of the portfolio committee for holding all of us accountable. We ought to be accountable ourselves because it is a public duty that we account to the nation because as stewards we preside over these organisations in the interest of advancing the public good,” Jack said.
“So, we appreciate the questions, the robustness of members of parliament. We might not necessarily agree on everything, but we respect their duty to hold us accountable.”
Despite all that happened during their term, Jack didn’t mince his words as he made it clear that they are going to leave office feeling shameless about how they performed their duties.
“We also want to thank the department for journeying with us over this period as our term comes to an end. We’re ending our term with our heads held high in terms of the strives we have made over the past three years, to turn around the sport of boxing,” he said.
“We did not achieve everything we wanted to achieve. We note the issues that have been raised by members and where we have committed to provide written responses, we provide those written responses to members of the portfolio committee. Then lastly chair, this is proven scientifically, organisations that have turned around have got continuity in leadership. The phuma ngena syndrome doesn’t work scientifically. So we hope that there will be continuity and change in the context of Boxing South Africa.”
Meanwhile, a new BSA board is set to be announced by Minister of Sport Zizi Kodwa either before the end of this month or early in December.
