What’s on the agenda? CMA AGM on 30 November

Whilst most of the focus has been on the nominees for the seven available Comrades Marathon Association (CMA) Board position at the Annual General Meeting (AGM), there are some other important motions to be discussed and voted for at the 30 November meeting.

FINAL NOTICE AND AGENDA – CMA AGM 2024 Download

Below are details of the CMA constitutional amendment motions, standard motions and consideration for the financial statements.

Proposed Motions

There are five motions for discussion and voting.

Using local manufacturers for clothing

Currently most (if not all) of the Comrades branded clothing (including race shirts) are made in China. The motion is to propose using South African textile suppliers for the Comrades clothing to benefit the local economy.

I would expect that using local suppliers will result in increased costs – just how much will be interesting to see. I would support using local manufacturers unless the costs are prohibitive or there would be a reduction in quality.

I thought that the use of a foreign photography company for race photos would also be up for discussion. There has been a lot of social media chatter about the quality and prices of the official photos since MarathonFoto was awarded the contract in 2022.

That no actively serving Board Member may simultaneously hold a portfolio position on the Race Organising Committee (ROC)

This is a no brainer and is one of the root causes of many past problems. Certain Board members infiltrate the various ROC portfolios essentially creating a conflict of interest between themselves and the Race and Organisation Manager (ROM).

The Board is responsible for the strategic direction of Comrades and is essentially the ‘boss’ of the ROM. However, when Board members insist on sitting on portfolios with operational functions then the ROM becomes the ‘boss’ of the Board member creating a conflict of interest.

The prime example of this is Isaac Ngwenya heading the well documented controversies stemming from the Community Marshals Portfolio, Isaac Ngwenya heading the Risk and Disaster Management Portfolio until 2024 (and should therefore have been jointly liable together with Rowyn James for the safety issues resulting from the collapse of fencing along the start funnel and the congestion experienced at the bottleneck on Epworth Street at the 2023 event) and Celi Makhoba heading the Race Advisory Committee (who should have been jointly liable together with Rowyn James for cutoff debacle of 2023 as well as numerous other controversies over the years) as well as the so-called ‘Protocol’ Portfolio which essentially coordinates the VVIP and VIP guestlist as well as the list of dignitaries taking stage at the two prizegiving ceremonies. Makhoba has allegedly used this portfolio and position to leverage his own political connections and public sources of sponsorship for his own races for several years.

Clarification on cyberbullying allegations

Naturally, I have a personal interest in this one. During a bizarre press conference in August ‘cyber bullying’ (rather than corruption, maladministration, incompetence or megalomaniac KZNA Presidents) was listed as the number one threat to the future of the Comrades Marathon by interim Chair Jeff Minnaar. Minnaar also claimed that cyber bullying was the reason for the mass Board resignations.

Various threats against ‘a blogger’ were made (including legal action) and, whilst no names were mentioned in the press conference itself*, insinuations as to those responsible were made. The former ROM, Ann Ashworth, believes that she lost a sponsorship deal to set up a new Gauteng-based elite and development running club as a direct result of the press conference.

* However, Isaac Ngwenya, the Board member most heavily implicated in corruption and maladministration, was confident enough to joke about kleptomania at the press conference and name individuals in an interview with eNCA afterwards, “The lies and the fake news, I always have a thing of looking at Stuart Mann as a Bell Pottinger of Ann Ashworth and then to destroy the Board.”

The agenda topic specifically asks that:

“The Board provides a detailed report to the members clarifying:

a) The definition and nature of the alleged cyberbullying incidents;

b) The identity of the alleged perpetrators, if known; and

c) The current status of any legal proceedings or intended legal actions against the alleged perpetrators.”

I have asked the same from the interim Chair on a number of occasions but no concrete examples of cyber bullying have ever been provided and the ‘cyber bullying’ definition that the CMA appeared to use comes from a children’s health website.

I will be getting out the popcorn for this one.

Update on investigations into allegations of misconduct

One of the items passed at the SGM on 15 August was, “The passing of a resolution for the appointment of an independent committee to investigate the Community Marshals Portfolio, and to report its findings to the board, which report is to be published to members.”

Minnaar committed to investigating all allegations of corruption, maladministration, and incompetence against certain Board members and staff. However, three-and-a-half months later and key witnesses have yet to be contacted. Minnaar has instead elected to “investigate” allegations made against the previous ROM, Ann Ashworth, as posted by a fake Facebook account under the name Jerome Smith, with the allegations largely credited to the murmurings of Steve Mkasi and Delaine Cools.

My impression is that, despite statements in the media from the interim Chair and Vice Chair, the investigations are still very much in their formative stages and that the interim Board lacked the appetite to tackle the herd of elephants destroying Comrades House from the inside. Instead they have abdicated responsibility and left this for the new Board to sort out.

It’s going to need to be a big bowl of popcorn…

Catering at the Finish Venue

For the past few years clubs have not been allowed to arrange their own food and drinks at the finish venue and have had to pay exorbitant and extortionate prices to a predetermined vendor. The current vendor, Ward Events, was the only company to tender for the catering and hospitality contract in previous years, resulting in a one-horse-race for all rights and privileges at the finish venue.

The motions asks “whether the philosophy of catering should return to how it was previously where clubs and supporters could cater to their athletes’ specific needs by bringing drinks and food to the finish venue.”

This should be a simple one – I can’t think there’d be a club member in the country that would not support this. Runners are thirsty people and no one likes paying for expensive beer after running 90 kilometres. Likewise, the price of food led to many clubs not offering any to their members as it was just too expensive on top of paying over R6,500 for a hospitality site and then the add-on charges like R660 per ‘delivery’.

Earlier this year, I did a few pre-Comrades talks and the price of food and drinks at the Comrades finish was an even hotter topic than cutoffs. The full price list is available below.

2024 Comrades Marathon Site Menu Download

It might also be worthwhile for the new Board to look into the agreement with the current vendors as to whether there is any connection to current staff or Board members and / or anything untoward.

Proposed Amendments to the CMA Constitution

There are four proposed constitutional amendments. Changes to the constitution require two-thirds of those in attendance to vote in favour of the change.

Remove the KZNA and ASA Board positions / Change KZNA and ASA Board Positions to non-voting positions

This is actually two separate amendment proposals (7.1 and 7.3 on the agenda) and they are mutually exclusive in that if one is passed the other becomes invalid but there is a bit of nuance. The amendments seek to reduce or remove the potential negative influence of KZNA and ASA on the future of Comrades. The inspiration and credit for both of these proposed amendments goes to KZNA President Steve Mkasi and his bewildering attempts to orchestrate a Comrades coup.

The easier and less drastic motion is 7.3 to make the KZNA and ASA Board positions non-voting. However, this may not be necessary if the earlier motion 7.1 passes which is that “No member of the KZNA or ASA Boards shall be eligible to be elected to serve on the CMA Board.” The nuance is that not only would this motion completely remove KZNA and ASA Board involvement from the CMA but would also prohibit any sitting member of the KZNA or ASA Boards from being elected onto the CMA Board.

Restrict total Board membership duration to eight years

This should be a straightforward motion as it would prevent ‘life timers’ from hanging onto Board positions. Perhaps the only debate is whether the period should be eight years or ten years. Of note is that the motion specifies, “The period of 8 (EIGHT) years includes any terms under a previous constitution.” This means that even if the badly implicated current Board member Isaac Ngwenya somehow escapes sanction from the independent investigation into corruption and misconduct, he will still not be eligible for re-election in 2025.

READ MORE: How They Captured Comrades

Merge Life Membership and Honours

The motivation for this amendment reads, “Going forward there should be no differentiation between Life Membership and Honours and Life Membership, and it is further proposed that retrospectively all previous awards of Life Membership shall be converted to Honours with Life Membership.”

Unless there is some special differentiation that I am not aware of, this should be a straightforward approval.

Finances

Financial statements at AGMs do not generally garner much interest. However, CMA members should look out for the following.

What is the 2024 surplus? Comrades is a Non-Profit Company (NPC) and therefore a ‘profit’ is called a surplus. A large surplus is expected after the 2024 event (and questions should be asked if this is not the case). The CMA was under financial strain after Covid but the 2023 finances showed a massive surplus of R11,34 million and a return to the pre-Covid cash reserve levels of around R34 million.
What is the 2024 cash reserve? With 2023 seeing a return to the pre-Covid levels, should the cash reserves continue to climb (as expected) then questions should be asked as to how this excess cash will be used to advance the race and benefit the runners. It is expected that the cash reserves will rise from R34 million to well above R40 million when the 2024 financials are announced.
Race entry fees. Is there now scope to substantially reduce the entry fees back to pre-Covid levels (adjusting for inflation)? The entry fee for the cancelled 2020 event was R600 which was doubled to R1200 (excluding administration fees of R80) in 2022. With a large proportion of the distance running community coming from impoverished backgrounds and the mission of the CMA to make the race as accessible as possible, members should be asking for entry fee reductions.
Any big differences to 2023 categories? Are there any big changes to the equivalent category between the 2024 and 2023 numbers – if so, members should ask for a rational explanation. The 2023 financials were very similar across all categories except for “Race Expenses” which showed an increase of over R6 million and, to my knowledge, has never been explained. This is especially strange since 2022 finishes in Moses Mabhida Stadium which is far more expensive that the 2023 finish venue of Kingsmead.
Golden Handshakes. I was originally told that part of the R6 million additional “Race Expenses” was where Rowyn James’ golden handshake was ‘hidden’. However this has subsequently been denied with the explanation that his payout was only approved in October 2023 and will therefore only reflect in the 2024 financials.

Logistics

The AGM will be held at the Carter High School, Multipurpose Center, 22 Carter Drive, Athlone, Pietermaritzburg on Saturday, 30th November 2024 starting at 10h00 (with in-person registration from 9h00). All members who are eligible to vote will be required to produce proof of identity (ID document/ID smart card, passport or driver’s license) which will be verified by independent officials.

As a result of a motion passed at the SGM in August, online attendance and voting will be allowed for the first time at the 2024 CMA AGM. The online voting system that will be used has been thoroughly tested and is the same system that is used for voting by the South African Legal Practice Council.

There are currently about 1,200 CMA members in good standing (the highest number in the history of the CMA). It is understood that over 500 members have opted to attend online, 400 in person and there were about 150 declines.

Members attending should expect a long meeting and plan to ensure that they remain at the meeting when the voting for the seven available Board positions will be conducted. For those attending online a WhatsApp group has been created to keep people up to date with the where things are with the agenda.

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