BULLYISM!

Feb 05, 2012 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The decision of the government of Guyana to call in the Guyana Police Force to investigate the affairs of the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) is a clear act of political vindictiveness.
The government has failed every step of the way of hijack the Guyana Cricket Board and to institute an Interim Management Committee (IMC). Having failed to take over the governance of the cricket, the government resorted to the padlocking of the offices of the cricket board which stood on private property. Having failed also to entice the cricket board to break the locks without a lawful court order , the government now smarting from the decision of the West Indies Cricket Board to withdraw all regional and international matches from Guyana, has now been forced into desperation.
It has resorted to what it knows best- bullying the weak. It has decided to call in the Guyana Police Force to investigate the finance of the cricket board. Well, that is something else. The Guyana Police Force has been turned into an auditing firm.
The government has of course went down this road before. It had the accounts of the cricket board examined under the Friendly Society Act. Yet despite accusations that there is fraud in the finances of the board, the government refuses to release the report into the accounts of the board which are audited by a reputable auditing firm.
So just what exactly is the Guyana Police Force going to investigate? The Commissioner of Police and the Crime Chief should have no part in this charade. If the police are being called in, the police can only investigate a specific charge of fraud. It cannot be asked to investigate a general accusation of fraud. Therefore, if the police is being called in to investigate fraud in the affairs of the GCB, the specific case of fraud should be made known and if this fraud precedes the audit done under the Friendly Societies Act, then one expects that any specific allegation of fraud would have been uncovered in that audit. If it was not, then the government is morally obligated to call on those involved in that audit to offer an explanation if the audit did not pick up any fraud.
The fact of the matter is that if there was at all any fraud on the part of the Guyana Cricket Board, this would have already been made public by those desperate to take over cricket.
It would also be instructive to see what action is going to taken in respect to the administration of football where persons have been suspended by the world governing body for football. How come no investigation has been launched into the affairs of football considering the allegations that have swarmed regional football following revelations about what took place at a Caribbean Football Union’s meeting held sometime ago and which led to ripples throughout the world.
The government is misguided if it believes that this latest tactic is going to work. The West Indies Cricket Board has made it clear that it recognizes only the Guyana Cricket Board. The International Cricket Council has made it clear that it will not condone the takeover of cricket in Guyana by the government.
Nothing is going to change those positions. The real problem with cricket in Guyana is that there is a division within cricket in Demerara. It is for the various members of the Demerara Cricket Board to sort that problem out. That problem can be easily sorted out come the next round of elections, but the government knows that the result of those elections is not going to be in its favor so it is attempting to hijack the administration of cricket in Guyana by taking over the GCB.
How ironic this is because if there are problems within the Guyana Cricket Board those problems would have had to emanate from the previous administration of cricket. And it was this very government which saw it fit to award to a top official of the GCB a national award for his service to cricket. So how come now the government is saying that there are problems with the administration of cricket when it has given a national award to someone from the old board for his services to cricket?
It was also the GCB which for many years won the national award for the best sporting organization in Guyana. So how come now there is this loss of confidence in the GCB?
There has to be some special reason why the government is so desperate to get its hands on the GCB and the earlier those involved in administering cricket in Guyana expose just what is the government’s agenda and who are the principal players behind this conspiracy, the better.

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BULLYISM!

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