Dear Editor,
The BCB held its AGM last December under the new Cricket Administration Act (CAA), which act had broken new ground when the Select Committee rewrote the constitutions of the GCB and the DCB without any approval from the members of these cricket entities. At the same time, the Select Committee did not pay any attention to the archaic constitution of the BCB, most probably acting under the pretext that everything is rosy and dandy with Berbice cricket as is publicly stated in the media by all and sundry. Even the BCB, which blindly strongly supports the CAA, was flummoxed when called upon to execute the CAA. Legally, irrespective of its lopsided and controversial nature, the CAA is the law of the land and has to be adhered to.
The BCB, unwittingly, has now been sucked into the legal fracas since even though they explicitly published their AGM notice that it was being done in accordance with the CAA, they conducted their meeting in the same manner that they were accustomed to, incurring the wrath of its members.
Both the WICB and the GCB have taken pains to point out and subsequently challenge the deficiencies and contradictions within the CAA, but this advice has fallen on deaf and stubborn ears. No less a person than the Attorney General was accused of inaccuracy when he publicly stated that the Select Committee had consulted with the WICB on the appointment of the Ombudsman and other matters within the CAA, and he has since failed to respond. This is quite unlike the modus operandi of our learned AG. Had he been accurate or thought he was, he would have already publicly denounced this statement and demanded a full and unqualified apology.
Along with Sports Minister Frank Anthony, the AG successfully manoeuvred the CAA through Parliament after hoodwinking APNU by dangling the carrot of autonomy for Linden to obtain their support for the CAA.
Just as was predicted, ramming the lopsided, ill-conceived and controversial CAA down the throats of the cricket administrators did not solve the manufactured crisis in cricket.
There are numerous legal matters pending within the judicial system and most of these matters commenced since 2011.
The GOG failed in its quest to disband the GCB and has stubbornly refused to recognize that entity, ignoring all the recent successes surrounding the teams administered by the GCB. At least they could have congratulated the winning teams, but they seem to feel that by doing so they would publicly acknowledge the success of the GCB administrators, something which they are mortally afraid of. Guess they are living in ‘la la’ land and are wishing that these successes never happened. It is basically a joke that while Mr Veerasammy Permaul was awarded National Sportsman of the year, his victorious team and the association that orchestrated its success and that of all the age-group teams failed even to be recognised. Never in our history did a sport association perform so well in a single year; kudos to the GCB and its administrators.
The GOG’s solution to the manufactured crisis is the CAA, which, as predicted, has just precipitated more and more legal matters challenging, firstly, the CAA itself, the appointment of the Ombudsman without due consultative process and the above BCB matter, amongst others. Are we better off now than we were in 2011? No! By now, the authors of the CAA would have learnt that under the doctrine of separation of powers, the 3 branches of democratic power need to operate independently, and none of them should be allowed to subsume the other. You cannot legislate a pending judicial matter.
Yours faithfully,
Anand Dyal
