Time for Mkasi to “Pay Back the Money” to KZNA?

The Hippocratic Oaf

Whilst KZNA President, Steve Mkasi, has criticised a large group of concerned CMA Members from going to court to protect their democratic rights, Mkasi himself has a long history of litigation. However, unlike the CMA Members who were forced into (and were granted) an urgent High Court interdict by the actions of Mkasi and KZNA, Mkasi’s prior court actions were “frivolous and vexatious”. This according to former KZNA President Sello Mokoena. In addition, Mkasi still owes KZNA R386,000 from a 2015 court judgement which has not yet been paid.

Bad Judgement

In 2014, Steven Mkasi, via his athletics club, Phuma, took KZN Athletics (KZNA) to the Durban High Court in what was essentially a squabble about the timing of the KZNA AGM and readiness of the annual financial statements. It is also noteworthy that the court papers were filed as an ex parte application. According to my legal sources, this is a ‘sly’ manoeuvre as no notice is given to the other side. An ex parte application requires an extraordinary onus on the applicant to fully disclose all facts (even those that are prejudicial to their case) when making the application.

It initially looked good for Mkasi as he obtained an interdict against KZNA with ‘rule nisi’ being applied – essentially meaning that the court order would come into effect at a later date unless a particular condition is met. The condition in this case was “to show cause on or before the 26th February 2014 why KwaZulu-Natal Athletics should not be ordered to hold its annual general meeting on the 29th March 2014.”

However, the victory was short-lived. KZNA, with the assistance of their Council, petitioned the Judge President of Kwazulu-Natal as the original judge was a licensed athlete of an athletics club under the umbrella of KZNA. The argument was that the judge had a conflict of interest and should have recused himself. The ruling went in favour of KZNA and a retrial with a new and impartial judge was ordered.

With the matter heard before an impartial judge, Mkasi lost. Whilst he was not ordered to pay punitive costs, he was ordered “to pay the costs incurred by the respondents in the main application as well as the second application for reconsideration on the party and party scale, on an opposed basis.” The full judgement is available below. The costs order amounted to R386,000. However, according to Mokoena, when KZNA attempted to recover the money, they were informed by their attorneys that Phuma KZN Athletic Club had been liquidated.

Although Mkasi decided not to reply directly to my questions, he did reply via a third party to the effect that, “It is true that Phuma was ordered to pay the legal costs, the amount was never determined because Sello Mokoena’s KZNA never pursued the matter to be taken to taxation. Therefore it is a lie that Phuma was said to be liquidated.”

If this is the case, it would be highly irregular. I spoke to a legal expert who explained, “After there is an award with costs, the attorneys cobble together all their fees and they send it to the taxing person. The taxing person draws up a bill of costs and then the bill of costs goes to the taxing master at court and he decides on how much of the costs may be recovered – and that’s done in accordance with a certain tariff rate. Once the bills of costs have been taxed, it typically gets sent to the attorneys and then you have to pay over within a certain number of days or agree to a payment plan. I can’t imagine any firm of attorneys not getting a bill of costs taxed immediately after winning the case.”

I queried Mkasi’s account with Mokoena, “It’s not true that he was not taxed. However, there were issues around the registration of the club itself. There were questions as to whether the money could be recouped from a club that did not exist. But there is nothing stopping Mkasi from paying back the R386,000.”

According to Mokoena, KZNA (via their attorneys) did provide a taxed bill based on the costs order (which was R386,000) and pursued this matter until he left office in 2019, “The attorneys came up with the bill and it was left entirely on their expertise to get it taxed and monies owed recovered.”

Mokoena doubts that any money has subsequently been recovered from Mkasi. Before departing his KZNA position, Mokoena had warned that Mkasi, who was at that time leading another “unconstitutional structure called ‘Task Team’”, couldn’t stand for elections as he was not in good standing with KZN Athletics. Mokoena said they he went so far as to sent out an official secular to all clubs providing full details and account of this matter and warning on Mkasi’s standing. However, this did not stop Mkasi’s rise to power in the KZNA structures.

Cheating at Two Oceans

Integrity does not appear to be a factor for the KZNA electorate. Mkasi was banned from running Two Oceans in 2018 after he was found to have given another Phuma AC club member his race number to run the ultra marathon on his behalf (a type of cheating known as ‘banditting’).

According to a KZNA source familiar with the incident, “In the immediate aftermath of the Two Oceans cheating saga Steve came up with at least three different versions as to how his race number just happened to find its way onto another Phuma athlete, who had never even entered Two Oceans, but nonetheless travelled to Cape Town. After arriving at Cape Town International, he [Mkasi’s clubmate] went to the hotel at which the then CMA Marketing Manager was staying and was ordered to allow the Phuma athlete to share his room*. He [Mkasi] eventually settled on a version in which his (Steve’s) wife collected the club’s race numbers and must have accidentally handed Steve’s race number to the athlete in question (i.e. the one who had not even entered the race, so had no reason whatsoever to have collected a race number or to even have been in CT in the first place).”

* This part is especially damning because it seems to indicate that Mkasi, who was an CMA Board member at the time, abused his power.

UPDATE: After publishing the article I received a WhatsApp message from Mokoena involving a conversation he had with Cheryl Winn at the time concerning the cheating, “Athletics Western Province did send the matter to KZN Athletics, but via ASA where it was blocked on it’s tracks, it never came to KZN Athletics because Celi Makhoba [ASA’s technical delegate at Two Oceans that year] knew this would affect Steve’s Board membership standing. People who read this without context would think KZNA and CMA Boards were reckless in allowing a person who had being found guilty of such gross violation of the athletics code of conduct to continue holding office, they wouldn’t know that the actions of ASA and ASA technical official (Celi) at Two Oceans in that year rendered both KZNA and CMA helpless as a case couldn’t be brought against Steve without source documents and a clear complainant As president I was waiting for this matter to come to KZN Athletics and kept asking ASA, it never came.”

READ MORE: Corruption, Maladministration & Incompetence: A Comrades Charge Sheet

A Good Time to Settle Bad Debts

It should be noted that some of the original information that I was provided by Mokoena proved to be incorrect or unsubstantiated (admittedly all of this happened a decade ago) – and, during his time in office, he was also no stranger to controversy or shy about turning to the courts to settle disputes. According to a legal professional who has worked with both Mokoena and Mkasi, “Steve and Sello are as bad as each other and may well sing from a similar song sheet.”

Regardless of the political battles and infighting at KZNA, here are the following facts and ramifications:

• The costs order is not in dispute (Mkasi himself has acknowledged this).
• No money has been recovered from Phuma or Mkasi and paid to KZNA.
• Phuma Athletics Club and, by definition, its members are therefore not in good standing with KZNA and should not be able to stand for election or hold positions on the KZNA Board.
• If Mkasi wants to stay in his position as President of KZNA, it’s time he paid back the money.

I took the liberty of referring this matter to a legal professional for expert opinion. Having taken a detailed look at all the information and documentation, he agreed stating, “A judgement including a costs award means that KZNA can even still now have the bill of costs drafted, taxed and claim from Phuma… So if the KZNA board are committed to doing the right thing, that is exactly what they should do.”

What are the chances of KZNA doing the right thing? I think there is more chance of the CMA awarding this blogger the “Journalist of the Year” prize at their annual awards dinner than there is of KZNA seeing any of that money without a judge’s order.

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