CSA won’t get SJN report before September 30 deadline

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The next set of hearings will resume on October 18

Cricket South Africa’s Social Justice and Nation-Building (SJN) hearings are due to resume on October 18, seven weeks after they were initially supposed to, and more than three months after the process began. That means CSA won’t have the final report by ombudsman, advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza, on September 30 as originally planned.

Those who have been adversely implicated in testimonies given between July 5 and August 6 will have an opportunity to exercise their right to reply in the second phase of the hearings.

ESPNcricinfo understands Dr. Jacques Faul, the former CSA chief executive, and David Becker, a lawyer representative for Director of Cricket Graeme Smith, are among those who will appear for the hearings.

Those parties, and any others who wish to respond to allegations of racial discrimination, were originally given until August 18 to submit written affidavits. That deadline was subsequently extended thrice, to September 16.

Several people, including Smith, national men’s head coach Mark Boucher and AB de Villiers, have made written submissions, which Ntsebeza will read over the course of the next month before the oral testimonies begin.

As things stand, the timing of the second half of the SJN will now clash directly with the T20 World Cup starting October 17. South Africa play their first match on October 23 against Australia, where they’d hope to break their own record of eight successive T20I wins. The team have already conceded that the proceedings at the SJN have had an impact on them.

The other implication of the extension is likely to be the cost. CSA is believed to have budgeted R5 million (US$350,000) for the initial process, which includes the ombudsman’s fees as well as a daily rate for the legal counsel who have been present at the hearings. This is expected to go up.

Talk of reparations for those who can claim their income was affected by racial discrimination has softened, although it was part of the original aim of the SJN under CSA’s old board. The new board have not made any such commitments.

Firdose Moonda is ESPNcricinfo’s South Africa correspondent

This article was originally published by Espncricinfo.com. Read the original article here.

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