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By ANWAR OMAR
The Mowbray Cemetery Board faces its first major accountability test since a court-driven governance reset, with its Constitution requiring an AGM in October and no date yet confirmed as the deadline for convening it steadily approaches.
Muslim Views understands that certain officials on the new Board are resisting convening the AGM on schedule, citing the short interval since the Special General Meeting of August 23, 2026 and the Board’s need to settle into its work before organising a further meeting. This concern deserves to be taken seriously as a practical matter. It does not, on examination, hold up as a reason to delay.
Muslim Views put the substance of this article to the Board ahead of publication and the Board’s response is set out in full towards the end of this article.
What the Constitution requires
Clause 17 of the MCB’s 1948 Constitution is unambiguous: “An Annual General Meeting of Members shall be convened by the said Board to be held in the month of October in each and every calendar year.” There is no discretion built into that clause, no exception for a board newly elected, and no mechanism anywhere in the Constitution’s 26 clauses for postponing an AGM. The only adjournment provision is in Clause 26, which applies narrowly to a meeting that fails to reach quorum on the day. This is not a general power to defer an AGM.
The administrative requirement of the Constitution is not onerous. Clause 18 requires only that notice, signed by the Secretary, be published in two newspapers circulating in Cape Town – one English, one Afrikaans – at least seven days before the meeting. Clause 20 requires an agenda of three items: confirmation of the previous meeting’s minutes, presentation and passing of the annual financial statements, and the election of members in place of those retiring.
Under Clause 8, no Board members are due to retire this year. The member rotation only begins at the first and second anniversaries of the August election, so this year’s AGM would be procedurally less demanding than most. It requires essentially only a financial reporting and accountability session, not a contested election.
Given the modest constitutional requirement, an inability to “fully settle and organise an AGM effectively” within roughly two months is difficult to reconcile with a constitution that requires only two newspaper notices and an agenda of two items.
Why this amounts to a real test
In March 2026 the MCB was found unlawfully constituted after 15 years without an AGM, a governance vacuum that left it unable to demonstrate any mandate from the community it serves. The entire remedial architecture that followed, including the Independent Panel, the reopened membership roll, and the supervised Special General Meeting (SGM), was configured to correct that one specific failure. A newly elected Board cannot make its first substantive act the avoidance of its own first constitutionally mandated AGM without inviting an obvious and uncomfortable comparison to the very pattern the entire process was designed to end.
This is not a mere technicality, as an AGM is the one forum in which ordinary members get to ask questions, see the financials, and hold elected representatives to account. Skipping or delaying it in the very first cycle sends a message about how seriously the new Board takes the mandate it was elected to hold, at the precise moment that message matters most.
Why it matters given the litigation
An AGM is exactly the setting in which the wider membership would ordinarily expect to be briefed on the financials and how the Board is managing any conflicts within its own ranks. Delaying the AGM, for whatever reason, has the practical effect of delaying scrutiny, at a time when scrutiny is most warranted. Members with a direct stake in the institution many of whom fought for the reopened membership and the supervised election in the first place, are entitled to expect that the body meant to represent their interests will account for itself on schedule, not at its own convenience.
Why AGMs matter for organisations like the MCB
None of this is unique to the MCB. AGMs exist, across voluntary associations, trusts and non-profits generally, to perform functions no other mechanism reliably does:
• require financial statements to be disclosed as a matter of course, rather than on demand;
• give ordinary members a regular and predictable opportunity to question decisions and raise concerns;
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• provide the formal occasion on which a board’s mandate is renewed or withdrawn through election;
• create a public record of minutes, resolutions and attendance against which later disputes can be tested.
For a body holding land in trust (waqf) for a religious community rather than for its own benefit, these functions carry particular weight. An AGM is one of the few moments the community gets to see what is being done in its name.
As the MCB’s own recent history demonstrates, missed AGMs are how a governing board drifts beyond accountability to the people it serves. The new Board was elected to end that gap, not to perpetuate it.
The Board’s response
Muslim Views wrote to the Board’s Secretary on September 19, 2026 setting out the questions addressed in this article, including whether the AGM would be convened within October as required by Clause 17.
Faizal Sayed, Chairperson of the Board, responded on September 23, 2026, noting that the Secretary was travelling and that he would respond in his stead given the media enquiry. The response, reproduced here in full, was as follows:
“We wish to thank you for raising the questions and concerns contained in your correspondence. The matters raised are important and relevant to the broader community, and we appreciate the time and consideration taken to bring them to the attention of the Board. We wish to advise, however, that the matters raised are currently subject to consideration and decision-making by the Board. As such, we are not in a position to provide substantive responses to the questions at this stage. Once the Board has concluded its deliberations and an outcome has been reached, we will be pleased to communicate the relevant outcome and provide such further information as may appropriately be shared.”
As at the time of publication, this response does not confirm whether the AGM will be convened within October, does not set out what remains outstanding in preparing for it, and does not address whether members will be informed of an AGM. Muslim Views will report further once the Board’s deliberations have concluded and a substantive response is available.
What to watch for next
Muslim Views has written separately to Sayed to clarify the position under the Constitution. Clause 17 requires the AGM to be held within October without exception, and Clause 18 requires only seven days’ published notice ahead of the meeting. On that basis, even a meeting held on the final day of October would require notice by October 22 at the latest, meaning the Board retains room to act, but that room narrows with each week that passes without a confirmed date.
Sayed indicated that he, like the Secretary, is currently travelling, and is due to return on October 5, 2026. Taking this into account, Muslim Views has asked the Board to confirm a specific AGM date, and that notice will be published in accordance with Clause 18, by no later than Monday, October 12, a full week after his return, and still comfortably ahead of the point by which notice would in any case need to go out. Readers should treat October 12 as the next milestone in this story: either a confirmed date within October, or a further, harder-to-explain silence on a question the Constitution does not leave open to debate.
