The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) is not aware of any dispute with Guyana over proceeds from the 2007 Cricket World Cup.
This is according to Tony Deyal, Corporate Services Manager of the WICB.
“We have not been officially informed that a dispute exists with Guyana. If there is one it will be resolved amicably between both parties,” Deyal told Stabroek Sport yesterday.
Deyal’s statement was supported by that of Chief Finance Officer (CFO) of the WICB, Barry Thomas who earlier told Stabroek Sport that there “was no official correspondence from the government of Guyana on this matter.”
President Bharrat Jagdeo had told members of the media at a press conference on Tuesday that there was a possibility that the government would sue the WICB in an effort to receive monies owed for the staging of six Super Eight matches.
According to Jagdeo the amount is “over a million dollars,” and the sum represents gate receipts.
It is still unclear why the government would contemplate resorting to suing the WICB and Deyal would not say whether other territors were having a similar problem accessing the proceeds from their gates.
According to a source in Trinidad, up to the end of 2007, the Trinidad government had not received their gate receipts as well.
However the source was unable to say whether the government had been paid since.
Deyal said the territories though had received an interim payment.
“The general situation is that all countries received an interim payment,” Deyal said.
Guyana received an interim payment sometime last year of a yet to be disclosed sum which represented part payment for accommodation for the teams, officials, media and sponsors (TOMS) of the ICC/CWC.
“There is a contractual mechanism for resolving disputes,” said Deyal.
“Guyana is a constituent and full member of the WICB and we will work closely with that country, or any other which may have issues it would like resolved, to ensure that the matters are handled suitably and satisfactorily,” he said.
The government had spent in the vicinity of US$50 million to host the World Cup matches with a new stadium being built at Providence, East Bank Demerara from a line of credit agreement with the government of India consisting of a US$19m soft loan and a US$6m grant.