The Local Organising Committee (LOC) said yesterday that several players on the ground were putting the “finishing touches” to the Guyana National Stadium at Providence and all were being managed “by a team”.
LOC Chairman Dr Frank Anthony, Chief Executive Officer of the Guyana LOC Karan Singh and Minister of Public Works and Transpor-tation Robeson Benn presided at an urgently called press conference to respond to a Stabroek News report yesterday, captioned ‘CWC appoints UK firm to manage Providence Stadium; cites loss of confidence in LOC’.
The report in this newspaper had its origin in a letter dated March 17 from the ICC CWC West Indies 2007 Inc Senior Legal Counsel Derek Jones, which cited the CWC’s displeasure with Guyana’ inability to “deliver a fully functional operating Super Eight venue in accordance with your contractual obligations”.
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