Athletics South Africa grilled in parliament on the CIPC deregistration

ASA lost their CIPC registration certificate in February this year, and they were deregistered.

This followed their failure to submit annual financial reports at least for the past two years.

Committee member Liam Josephs of the DA took ASA into task, trying to get to the bottom of who was responsible for the deregistration of the organisation at CIPC.

"When Athletics South Africa gets deregistered from CIPC and I want to clarify this with South Africans, what that means. Deregistered from CIPC meaning that you don't have a legal personality anymore, meaning that you can't open bank accounts anymore,” Josephs said.

“Meaning that you can't transact anymore, meaning that you can't enter into contracts anymore. Meaning also that you can't form structures, meaning that the recognition of athletics in South Africa hangs in the balance.

“You must acknowledge what it means to the athletes in this country because when you lose your registration with CIPC then you are losing your ability to get broadcast rights, that's R11.9 million gone.

“Then you are losing your ability to get sponsorships, R5.7 million, gone. Then you are losing your ability to get your Lotto grant, R2.2 million, gone and all you could do perhaps is get membership, R7.2 million in, out of R38 million that you would have otherwise got.

“So, I want to know because many times when I clarify things like this for the public, the public asks me, who is responsible for this? Is it the board? or is there a particular individual who missed this and reneged on their duty for this?

“I want the name and the surname and the position of the individual who was declared responsible for the CIPC related matters of this particular federation."

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It was reported yesterday that ASA have quickly rectified the CIPC error, which could have seen South African athletes missing the opportunity to compete both nationally and internationally and the organisation also missing the chance to get funding both from government, sponsors and World Athletics. 

This means that CIPC has since enlisted them.

ASA’s biggest challenge has been the South African Revenues Services (SARS) tax issues, as the organisation’s beleaguered Acting CEO Terrence Magogodela explains their compliance challenges.

"Without trying to mislead, to say, there was only this tax issue or income tax matter that was a problem, obviously with these two, yes. That was 2022 and 2023 because of these challenges of this income tax which was identified as well by the auditors, it was really, really, really giving us a lot of challenges to really submit our reconciliation or to submit our income tax matters to CIPC,” Magogodela said.

“That was the main challenge, but as it may be, we worked so hard during that period, we got the information that we requested and then we speedily resolved the matter of bringing ASA back to its compliance.

Meaning that we managed to get our CPIC records, ASA was registered once more but obviously when we still engaged with the experts in regards to this matter because we have to engage our tax experts, we still have to solve this issue of tax because we have to go back now to SARS, to say SARS, this is what we have resolved, there's this income tax number, how do we link and then we remove all those that are at SARS, so that we can have one income tax number of Athletics South Africa.

I can confirm before the committee that, the process is on, we have received our CIPC records last week on the 21st [of March] and then our next step now is to visit the South African Revenue Services so that this matter can be closed."

Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee Joseph McGluwa forced ASA president James Moloi to apologise to the nation on the matter of the deregistration of the athletics body by CIPC.