Asks Donald Duff
The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) will have two observers present on Sunday when the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) stages its annual general meeting at the Georgetown Cricket Club pavilion beginning at 10am.
Imran Khan, Corporate Communications Officer of the WICB, yesterday told Stabroek Sport that…”the WICB will appoint two observers for the GCB elections.”
The observers, added Khan, will be named shortly.
Secretary of the GCB, Anand Sanasie, yesterday told Stabroek Sport that notices of the meeting had been published but he could not say whether the AGM will go ahead as scheduled.
“I really don’t know. We have published the notices. We have to hope for the best,” said Sanasie.
He explained to this newspaper that for the AGM to go ahead two of the three county boards must be present and there must be 12 delegates from the two county boards.
“Under the present constitution there must be two member boards with a total delegate count of 12,” he said.
Sanasie also said that at Sunday’s meeting a new constitution of the GCB will be tabled.
“Also to be tabled at the AGM is a new constitution put together by the Constitutions Committee of the GCB and member boards,” he added.
Asked if an injunction preventing them from holding themselves out to be members of the Guyana Cricket Board was in effect Sanasie said that there was no injunction in place.
When contacted president of the Berbice Cricket Board (BCB) Keith Foster said that the BCB had not received any official notification from the GCB with respect to Sunday’s meeting.
“We have not gotten an invitation,” Foster said adding that he had seen some mention of the AGM in the newspapers.
“The Berbice Cricket Board has no correspondence about that,” said Foster.
He said that the BCB was supposed to be notified two weeks in advance. Asked whether the BCB will participate if an invitation is forthcoming in the next few days Foster said that would be unconstitutional.
Asked whether the BCB would have participated in the AGM if they had been properly notified Foster said the executive would have had to meet before such a decision would have been made.
Foster said the BCB will be meeting today to select the members for its various committees and the matter will be discussed.
However, at least one if not two county boards will be present on Sunday. President of the Essequibo Cricket Board Fizul Bacchus said last night that the ECB will be participating in Sunday’s AGM.
“Essequibo will be represented as far as I am concerned. We had an executive meeting last Saturday and we will be participating at the GCB elections,” Bacchus said.
And, Bacchus indicated that there was a possibility that the Demerara Cricket Board could also participate in the elections as there were going to be lections of the DCB tomorrow from 5pm in the GCB Boardroom.
Bacchus said he was chairman of a three man committee set up by the GCB to look into the DCB situation. The other members of that committee were Dru Bahadur and Terry Holder.
But Bacchus was also skeptical of that meeting coming off since he indicated that he was not sure who was going to turn up.
The who issue is quite complicated especially since there is a legal view that there is an injunction in place against members of the GCB and as such they should not hold themselves out to be officers or members of the Executive Committee of the GCB as they can be found to be in Contempt of Court.
Then there is also the issue of the Guyana Cricket Administration Bill of 2012 which seeks to establish the GCB, the DCB, the ECB and the BCB as corporate bodies.
It also seeks to replace the existing GCB constitution with a new constitution – The Constitution of the Guyana Cricket Board as the government moves to bring the GCB in line with the cricket boards of sister CARICOM countries.
Should that bill be passed in parliament it will mean that Sunday’s elections and possibly the elections of the ECB and the BCB held earlier this year will be null and void.
