Did the Government snub the WICB President?

Jun 03, 2014 Sports

– The Sports Minister should make his response public

It is now public knowledge that the Third Test Match between West Indies and New Zealand scheduled to be played at the

President Donald Ramotar

Providence Stadium from June 26 to 30 has been removed from Guyana by the West Indies Cricket Board.
It is also now known that the President of the WICB Mr. Dave Cameron was in Guyana for Three days trying to work out a solution to the ongoing feud with the primary objective of keeping WICB matches and tournaments playing here.
Kaieteur Sport was reliably informed that while meetings with cricket officials and the Minister of Sports were held, his meeting with President Ramotar was cancelled when he was in the reception area of the Office of the President. A usually reliable source at the WICB stated that Mr. Cameron’s meeting with President Ramotar was confirmed by Mr. Anthony days before and reconfirmed an hour before the meeting.
The meeting which was scheduled to be held at 15:30hrs on Tuesday 27th May was preceded by a Cabinet meeting and it is believed that it was at this forum that a decision was taken to cancel a meeting that may very well have resulted in a different situation than we are being faced with today, complete isolation from the cricketing world.
Why did the Government snub the WICB President? Did this lead to the last minute rush to salvage the situation with an exchange of letters?
Any plebe reading the government release would realise that a letter coming from the WICB immediately after its 15:00hrs teleconference on Friday 30th May would have been a result of decisions taken at that meeting. The teleconference was called specifically to decide on the moving of the game and to which venue.
The Minister’s prompt response giving the Guarantees requested also speaks volumes of what was apparently transpiring

Dave Cameron

behind the scenes. The Government was obviously seeking last minute solutions to save face. Why? Why did the Government press release conveniently omit to state that a further Twenty Four hours was given by Mr. Cameron after he was told that the President was unavailable on Friday afternoon. The time actually ran out at 17:00hrs on Saturday 31st May.
The Government release chose to stay clear of the content of Minister Anthony’s reply which Kaieteur sport was told granted the guarantees requested, but WICB made it clear that only a guarantee from President Ramoutar would be accepted as this was negotiated between Mr. Anthony and Mr. Cameron via a telephone conversation initiated by Mr. Frank Anthony before the WICB Directors commenced their teleconference.
The source stated that it is not unusual for the Minister of Sports to say something and do the opposite hence the reservation by the WICB.
It is obvious that there is “more in the mortar than the pestle”. The current situation is likely to get worse when the Cricket Bill is signed into law as the WICB has made its intentions clear.
The public must find out why our Government snubbed the WICB President.
It is important that President Ramotar himself get to the bottom of the matter and find out what are the real issues. This is appearing to be a case of “all the President’s men”.