The International Cricket Council Cricket World Cup 2007 Inc (CWC) has wrested management of the Providence Stadium site for the games from the Local Organising Committee (LOC) and handed it to UK firm GL Events.
Citing its displeasure with the LOC’s inability to “deliver a fully functional operating Super Eight venue in accordance with your contractual obligations”, ICC CWC also refused to approve the appointments of Walter Willis as the Stadium Manager and former sport minister, Anthony Xavier as the Site Manager. In a letter directed to Sport Minister Frank Anthony and LOC CEO Karan Singh, which this newspaper has seen, ICC CWC said neither Willis nor Xavier participated in the CWC’s site management programme; they failed to attend a workshop in Barbados last month and missed all seven conference calls conducted by CWC for the site management team.
CWC said the fees and expenses associated with GL Events managing the stadium are approximately US$20,000 and the expectation is that there will be additional expenses that are currently unforeseen, but which based on the experience of other LOCs are likely. The LOC would have to bear these expenses.
The strongly worded letter from Senior Legal Counsel of ICC CWC Derek Jones said the cricketing body has lost confidence in the ability of the LOC to provide proper site management for the games, which will commence on March 28. The letter was also copied to senior management of the CWC.
In a comment to Stabroek News last evening, Singh said the LOC did not agree fully with some of the observations made by the CWC. He said the LOC has replied formally to the letter, and that he did not want the contents of the letter to divert the LOC from its task. Singh said the LOC wants to work with CWC and any support at this time would be welcomed.
According to the letter, which was dispatched to the Singh last Saturday, CWC said that over the last several weeks a number of matters were brought to the LOC’s attention regarding its failure to proceed satisfactory or effectively in relation to its obligations pursuant to the Host Venue Agreement (HVA). These failures amount to clear breach of contract, it said, adding that every opportunity had been afforded to Guyana to rectify the deficiencies and breaches, but it had failed to do so.
The areas involved include: completion of the accreditation centre, media centre, video board, turnstiles, power distribution, venue graphics and other critical services.
“Your failure to deal adequately with these and other areas has resulted in CWC 2007 being unable to have confidence in your ability