Parliament told of alleged fraud in SAFA regional elections

The highly contested South African Football Association (SAFA) elections were one of the topics that took centre stage at the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee of Sport, Arts and Culture meeting.

SAFA Vice-President Bennet Bailey alleged regional election irregularities in the Sarah Baartman region in the Eastern Cape this past weekend.

He says two SAFA National Executive Committee (NEC) members, Mzimkhulu Fina and Chris Tyhawana, aligned with the Football Transformation Forum (FTF), arrived at the regional elections with auditors’ vetting forms and results without the auditors present at the congress.

Bailey alleges that these vetting results excluded candidates who do not support SAFA President Danny Jordaan’s re-election.

“The elections were supposed to take place on Saturday, but SAFA, via our CEO, deployed two people who are not part of the membership committee.

These nominations were sent to the audit firm, but mysteriously the audit firm said on Saturday that they are not available to attend.” “The delegates who were in attendance submitted their proof that the document produced by the auditing firm is wrong.

Mzimkhulu Fina and Chris Tyhawana argued that it should be accepted and that the elections will be conducted according to that document, but the LFA stood their ground.” Sarah Baartman is one of the eight regions in the EC, the second biggest province for SAFA in terms of regions after KwaZulu-Natal (11 regions).

Bailey, who is part of the Save Our SAFA (SOS) lobby group behind AmaZulu owner Sandile Zungu’s campaign, went on to explain that the auditors have disowned those vetting forms, and said a case has since been opened with the police.

SABC Sport recently interviewed the Chairperson of Save Our SAFA, Lebogang Riet, the lobby group behind Zungu’s presidential campaign, who complained that regional elections were stolen.

He revealed that they had sent letters to SASCOC, CAF and FIFA to intervene, but there was no response.

Bailey reiterated those words and said the elections won’t be free and fair.

Portfolio Committee member Marlon Daniels of Patriotic Alliance stopped short of saying these elections won’t be free and fair.

He questioned why SASCOC has not been responding to letters from the SOS, questioning impartiality in this matter.

“This is not healthy, and I want to know what role SASCOC is going to play because I’m disturbed, but not surprised that SASCOC did not respond to communication sent to them.