While outgoing president of the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) Chetram Singh claims that he has no idea how investigations are proceeding, some executive members are not satisfied with the work of the investigator.
Some executives of the divided GCB claim that the investigator, who was appointed through the office of the Registrar of Friendly Societies to probe the entire operations of the GCB, is “not listening to some executives and he is wasting their time.”
Two other executives said that it was frustrating especially since the investigator seems to be overlooking many of the irregularities.
When asked what the name of the investigator is none of the executives knew his full name and are referring to him as Mr. Foster.
One executive also contended that if the probe is done as was specified after the GCB executive meeting two weeks ago then some persons might appear before the courts. Stabroek Sport learnt that the investigator has met with some of the executives and persons perceived to be in the Chetram Singh faction are receiving favoured treatment while the others are treated as “trouble makers”.
One executive was quoted as saying that “we cannot be trouble makers when there are legitimate cases where there are some questionable practices and these seem to be brushed under the carpet by the investigator.”
One executive also claimed that he and another executive member got into an argument yesterday during their meeting since “Foster was not listening to me.”
According to the source, he pointed out to the investigator that Barcellos, Narine and Company, the accounting firm that conducted the audit before it was handed over to the Friendly Society, had only done a sample audit of five percent. However, the investigator is saying that the company had done a comprehensive audit and this also led to a disagreement.
When Stabroek Sport spoke to Singh he said that he was unaware of how investigations are going but he said he had promised Foster the Board’s fullest cooperation. He indicated that part of Foster’s mandate is to speak with all the executives of the GCB and conduct a full investigation of the institution.
Singh, who was at the helm since 1990, said that he was the person the investigator spoke to. However, he did not divulge any information on what transpired.
When Stabroek Sport contacted General Secretary of the GCB Anand Senasie he said that he did not disclose any information but said that the investigator spoke with the executive. He said that he has surrendered the books to the investigator but he has not said anything to him.
Therefore it is still not yet known how much longer the process will take, further putting in doubt when the Annual General Meeting of the GCB will be held. It was originally billed for January 30.
Meanwhile, the full scale investigation came after the February 9 executive meeting with officials from the Registrar of the Friendly Societies. That development came after the society had earlier disclosed that there were “concerns” raised by its accounting specialists about the audited financial reports and annual returns of the GCB.
The investigation will not be limited to who signs cheques and who approves expenditures. These will fall under the ambit of the investigator since some executives at the meeting had complained that many times they were not aware of how and when monies were allocated for various projects.
This was also raised yesterday by some of the executives.
Stabroek Sport had also learnt that there will be a detailed assessment by the investigator of the report on the two hostels that was submitted by Design and Construction Services Limited (DCSL). DCSL was unable to provide a comprehensive audit on the construction of the two GCB hostels at LBI and Anna Regina due to the “inconsistent and conflicting” information provided by the Board. In some instances, the company had written in its findings that pertinent information that was required was not provided by the GCB. The report, which was seen by Stabroek Sport, indicated that since no record of payments was provided for the LBI training facility and hostel, DCSL could not have commented on actual payments made to the contractor, Shivnauth Construction Services.
In the case of the Anna Regina facility, the report had concluded that it could not state whether it was worth the money spent on it. The state of the hostels was the subject of a fierce dispute between two factions of the board and Sport Minister Dr Frank Anthony subsequently ordered an audit. After a more comprehensive audit was conducted by the Registrar it was concluded that further investigations had to be done.
