Dear Editor,
I refer to the letter dated June 16 titled ‘The government is trying to hijack a vibrant, well organised and accountable sports entity’ by Anand Kalladeen, Director of WICB. Apart from the Director’s strenuous attempt to defend the GCB’s poor performances, he also attempts to intimidate and belittle the President of Guyana. While the President is capable of responding for himself, his letter continues the tradition of WICB’s maligning and threatening behaviour towards a sitting Head of State. The letter is devoid of similar criticism aimed at the Opposition Leader, Mr. Granger and AFC, most of whose representatives prepared and then supported the Cricket Administration Bill. Mr Kalladeen targets the regular whipping boy (the government) on its role in cricket despite ICC’s November 2012 public statement about the significant role of governments in cricket.
Having never really heard before from Mr Kalladeen, he seeks to chastise the President now that the Bill has passed. He tries to profess his innocence and gain sympathy about his qualifications and professional work, by lashing out at those who seek to rein in the excesses of the WICB and the GCB hoping in the process to curry favour with the government to keep him in the Director position, or to shed the GCB’s baggage over the last five years.
It should be noted that the new threat issued by the WICB to dismiss Guyana’s Under 19 Team from the regional tournament is another attempt at blackmailing the Government and the people of Guyana.
Any fair-minded group or person which has reviewed the new Bill, would conclude why not just proceed with an open and transparent electoral process, and whoever wins, so be it. If all the books are in order, as the Director claims, then why is he objecting to the rolling out of the Bill? But, individuals such as Mr Kalladeen are conscious of the fact they may not be favourably considered once again for elections. A clear similarity to the pre-1992 rhetoric of those opposed to free and fair elections.
Moreover, as a Director of the WICB, how could Mr Kalladeen self-review or pronounce on the results by declaring them to be free and fair when he is part of both boards and part of the problem? Normally such comments are only made by an individual in an entity when there are question marks about the process. One only has to recall the numerous elections results Forbes Burnham declared to be free and fair during his tenure as Prime Minister/President of Guyana during the period 1968 to 1985. Similarly, upon examination of ACCA’s Code of Ethics and Conduct, not just its Fundamental Principles (FP) but the Conceptual Framework which governs the FP, Mr Kalladeen could be in breach of various categories.
The WICB’s Director spends most of the time in his letter ratcheting up claims about the challenges by others to the GCB and its authority. What this gentleman should have spent time explaining is the whereabouts of the assets of the GCB, what they are doing in a private company, why the GCB refused to investigate match-fixing allegations against another WICB Director in 2011 National T20 Competition and where they get the huge sums of money to pay lawyers to tie up challenges to their authority in Guyana’s courts? What is the real reason for the postponement of the T20 league it planned to set up?
If, as Mr Kalladeen is suggesting, his beloved GCB is a “vibrant, well organized, structured and accountable sports entity,” then how does this connect with the last placement of Guyana’s national cricket teams in the 2014 Regional four-day and one-day tournaments, and the near bottom-place finishes in the previous years in which the current executive has been in charge? The same could be said of Guyana’s Under 19 and Under 15 teams over the years. Isn’t there a marked similarity with WICB’s West Indies cricket teams, which now occupy bottom places of the ICC Test and ODI rankings, matching of course their performances in the last 5 years? For a qualified accountant to use any other measure than the quality and performance of an entity, reduces his objectivity.
Finally, rather than the WICB attempting to blackmail and issuing more threats to the Government of Guyana, what the WICB Director should have spent time elaborating in his letter is why the new Cricket Administration Bill will not affect the CPL matches in Guyana, unlike the case of the Test match? Is it that the financial rewards of the CPL are so overriding that the WICB will not pull games from Guyana, or that the main sponsors of that tournament come from Guyana?
Any further delay in the Cricket Administration Bill becoming law will see the WICB continue its threats, victimization and attempted blackmail.
Yours faithfully,
Jewan Persaud
