Dear Editor,
I observed recently a series of articles in the Guyana Times regarding the purported new constitution of the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) and quotes from Mr Clive Lloyd regarding same as reported by Mr Rajiv Bisnauth.
It is interesting that the Government of Guyana through one of its now infamous IMCs has resorted to preparing a constitution for an entity that was declared nonexistent and disbanded by the Minister of Culture Youth and Sport. What now makes that entity “in existence” considering that the Attorney General filed court papers claiming the assets of the GCB on a principle of Bona vacantia or ownerless property? Of course, the GCB has filed its reply and since the CCJ ruling has declared that it is the membership that exercises ownership of the assets in an unincorporated body, this government action is doomed to fail.
However, it is clearly hypocritical for the government to attempt to disband the GCB on the most frivolous of grounds and then resort to prepare a constitution to their liking for the very same disbanded entity. All of the manufactured allegations against the GCB were cleared by the Rupert Foster report, which investigation was commissioned by the Ministry of Labour. In any case, the government, the IMC, Mr Lloyd or anyone outside of the GCB and its membership cannot legally repeal the existing constitution and replace it with another.
It is simply not true that the GCB has two constitutions. In the lead up to the Stanford 20/20 tournament the GCB was required to register with the Friendly Society as a requirement to receive funding. The government, through the then Minister Manzoor Nadir, sought to stop the GCB elections through the Friendly Society. The membership then tested this registration in the courts and the Chief Justice effectively deregistered the GCB under the Friendly Societies Act in May 2011 deeming the registration to be illegal. It simply followed that the GCB had to revert to its original constitution since it was no longer registered under the Friendly Society as directed by the court.
Another glaring untruth is the contention that the WICB has accepted or agreed with the government prepared GCB constitution as reported in the Guyana Times of Sept 14, 2012. In fact, the WICB media officer Mr Imran Khan issued the following statement on Sept 15, 2012: “Please be advised that the substantive claim in the article that the WICB has approved the GCB constitution is not accurate. The WICB has received a draft of the proposed new GCB constitution and is currently reviewing [it]. Upon completion of this review the WICB will return the draft constitution with its comments.” The WICB hereby indicated that its comments are all that is intended and will definitely indicate that the GCB and only the GCB can decide on the content of a new constitution, considering that it is an independent, private organization governed by its own rules.
I have had numerous conversations with stakeholders, with almost everyone expressing the view that the proposed constitution is merely the old constitution with someone inserting clauses to exclude broad-based participation. The President of the ECB, Mr Prince Holder, has already indicated his concerns and I am informed that Mr Hilbert Foster did indicate in a recent letter to the press that the IMC is a failure and will not solve the current issues.
It is important to note that, after almost one year and millions of dollars, Mr Lloyd has basically achieved nothing, but has in fact created more confusion. I sometimes wonder whether Mr Lloyd is advising on anything other than the GCB constitution, as for the past three months he has indicated that the GCB will have elections every month end even though the GCB has numerous court challenges and was declared disbanded by the Minister responsible for sport. It would not be surprising if one morning I read in the Guyana Times that Mr Lloyd has called local government or probably national elections.
We do agree that there is a need for some changes to the constitution in view of all the legal challenges over the years, and in this regard the constitutional committee of the GCB had drafted a constitution for review by the membership. This process should be completed and the new constitution adopted at the GCB elections in January 2013. This can be the only solution.
I would like to also state that the Guyana Times has, on numerous occasions stated that both factions of the DCB are injuncted. That is totally untrue as the Bissoondyal faction is the only one injuncted while the Secretary of the DCB, Mr Mangal, gave an undertaking not to function until the matter is resolved. A copy of this injunction can be easily obtained by contact with my office. Based on legal advice received by the GCB, it has decided to recognize my election as President of the DCB, hence my appointment as an executive of the GCB.
I recently received information that an emissary of the government was making progress in brokering a resolution to this ongoing crisis, and what a crisis it has escalated into. As I am writing, the WICB is meeting in Barbados and they are very likely to fix the schedule for the next year or two. Guyana is unrepresented as Mr Anand Sanasie has refused to attend any meeting until the court matters are finished; in fact the government action in the court has debarred him from attending. Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe are all going to be here next year and the Guyanese public will suffer because of the government stance against the GCB. Our entire cricket structure will soon collapse as the coaching, kiddies and grass root cricket programmes are all suspended.
The government must allow the GCB to carry out its functions or the damage may be impossible to recover from, no matter who assumes control of the GCB.
Yours faithfully,
Rajendra Singh
President
DCB
