HARARE – President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s son-in-law Gerald Mlotshwa has been accused of causing havoc in cricket and paralysing the sport.

Mlotshwa, surprisingly appointed Sports and Recreation Commission (SRC) chairman recently, has risked Zimbabwe being suspended from world cricket by the International Cricket Council (ICC) over government interference.

The Harare lawyer has been accused of using the SRC to pursue personal agendas against the Zimbabwe Cricket board after twice losing cases in the High Court against the ZC board. Mlotshwa is married to one of Mnangagwa’s daughters.

The ICC does not allow government interference in union affairs. Expulsion from ICC tournaments is one of the possible penalties.

The ICC has stopped sending grants to Zimbabwe Cricket, which runs on money from ICC dished out to them every month. This has seen ZC employees not turning up for work.

A ZC official told ZimLive yesterday that Mnangagwa’s son-in-law had paralysed the game.

“ZC runs on what I call drip budget, where we come up with monthly budgets which ICC funds. When Mlotshwa suspended the ZC board, just a week following his appointment as chairman, ICC responded by warning against government interference and immediately suspended grants to us,” the official said.

“ZC daily runs on these grants and this means there will be no tours and no salaries for staff and players. There will be nothing at all to run cricket until government stops interfering in cricket. It’s a shame.”

The SRC last month suspended the newly-elected ZC board after they defied an SRC directive to stop their Annual General Meeting until allegations of electoral irregularities in Mashonaland Central were resolved.

With the directive coming on the eve of the AGM and most delegates having already travelled to Victoria Falls, ZC forged ahead with the meeting resulting in the re-election of Tavengwa Mukuhlani as board chairman.

ICC chief executive Manu Sawhney in his communique to Mukuhlani rehashed his organisation’s constitutional demands.

“I write further to your letter of June 13, 2019, in which you suggested that ZC appeared to be the subject of ‘government interference’ in particular through its issue of a directive… to suspend the elective AGM that was scheduled to take place the following day,” wrote Sawhney.

“Notwithstanding the directive, I understand that the AGM took place on June 14, 2019, however, please be reminded that: to the extent that such government directive puts ZC in breach of either the above obligations, the ICC board retains the discretion to suspend ZC and/or to impose such other sanction as it sees fit, including the suspension of any right to receive financial support from the ICC, to have Zimbabwean representative teams participate in any ICC events and to suspend the right to attend and/or vote at ICC board and Full Council Meetings.”

The ICC board meets in Dubai later this month and this is where Zimbabwe’s fate is likely to be sealed.

But Mlotshwa does not seem to be bothered by prospects of Zimbabwe’s suspension by the ICC. Speaking to journalists last week, he said: “The outcome of ICC’s board meeting regarding Zimbabwe will not affect in anyway the clear resolve of the SRC to deal with the contemptible rot in cricket no matter the consequences.

“Let’s forget about ICC money. Let’s focus on standing on our own two feet, on solid ground comprised of functioning grassroots programmes, a vibrant club structure, competitive provincial cricket and national sides, both women and men, born out solid structures.”