Letter to the sports - GCB Crisis - Govt.: IMC Proposal

Letter to the sports – GCB Crisis – Govt.: IMC Proposal

Aug 31, 2011 Sports

Dear Sports Editor,
While I do not in principle support Government’s involvement in the running of cricket, the following developments have caused enough concern to warrant such an intervention:
1. The Chief Justice court order/ruling has clearly defined the GCB, DCB, BCB and ECB as legal non entities that cannot sue anyone or be sued. He further said that all parties involved in the July 10th election are legal non-entities and the court is not the proper forum for any relief or redress involving the parties.
This includes Angela Haniff, Plaintiff in her capacity as Secretary of BCB and all the defendants who constitute Ramsey Alli’s purported Board cannot be recognized by the court as a legal body and therefore the court cannot recognize the election of the said office bearers.
Suffice it to say that the GCB, BCB, ECB and DCB are not accountable to no person nor authority except themselves, and if funds received are stolen or misappropriated neither they nor their unincorporated
membership associates can be complainants in either civil or criminal proceeding for lack of legal personality. They make their own rules and procedures for the conduct of their affairs, breach of which cannot be challenged in court for the simple reason that they and their members are legal non-entities.
Given the recent financial woes of the Board and the fact that lawlessness has overtaken its operations this is a most intolerable situation.
2. The Ramsay Alli Board has been elected, with 9 Essequibians and 1 defecting Berbician voting from an expected delegate representation of 27, as a group that has not one (1) single Board President on their Board. Only Fizul Bacchus of Essequibo Board is on the new panel whilst none of the other members belong to any County Board.
To note Mr. Black the Berbice defector and Mrs. Nurse who attended then withdrew from voting were both awarded Manger of the Male and Female Senior Teams for their transgressions as a trade-off in keeping with the policy inundated by Chetram Singh of trading positions for votes.
Mr. Alli himself was aired on a television promising to attend to the very financial issues raised by the majority of previous Executives as necessary to be straightened out before an election, as the first operation of his executives.
This has not been done. These include, reconciling audited and GCB accounts, Pakistan Tour, U- 19 Regional Tournament, Women Inter-county Tournament, assets register and location of Board assets, plus funds disbursed to the Essequibo Board from June 2010 to date all of which have not been previously accounted for.
In the wake of this pot-pourri of lawlessness and the suggestion of the Chief Justice that:
1. The Minister of Sports using his Executive authority intervene immediately.
2. Legislature be enacted to regularize this unlawful situation, thereby bringing order and legality to cricket and other sports.
It is against this background that I support the involvement of the Government, and applaud the President for his timely entry into this unacceptable situation.
He did take the pains to explain that Government wasn’t interested in running cricket and he would expect a speedy resolution to the proposal so that a properly structured, legal, cricket environment could evolve out of the ensuing deliberations, within a level playing field giving fairness and transparency to any election process. What more could we desire?
Some journalists seem continually tied to their emotions and are so utterly compromised that they cannot discern the bushes from the trees. They are lost in a world of their own.
All of a sudden the WICB has so much authority. Where was the WICB or ICC over the past two years of widespread lawlessness? Why did they not intervene? Must our Government sit by idly and allow the perverse, power drunk situation to continue unabated? No responsible Government would so act.
Should we allow an illegal non entity that accounts to nobody but themselves to continue running cricket in this country, how they feel and how they choose?
Come on lets bite the bullet, let the chips fall as they may. The government has taken a proactive way forward and we must support them it is only prudent and seems to me that is the best way forward.