Skerritt anxious to hear Wehby Task Force recommendations

CWI president Ricky Skerritt.
CWI president Ricky Skerritt.

ST JOHN’S, Antigua, CMC – Cricket West Indies president, Ricky Skerritt, said he is shortly looking forward to reviewing the recommendations of the Task Force on Corporate Governance Reform.

Speaking after being named to the International Cricket Council’s Governance Working Group which has been tasked with examining the future governance structure of the world governing body, Skerritt said the Task Force’s feedback should be available “over the next few weeks.

“Commissioning the CWI governance review task force, led by Jamaican senator and Grace Kennedy CEO, Don Wehby was as one of the first actions we took after being elected,” Skerritt said.

“Mr Wehby and his team have been hard at work ever since and I expect to begin hearing from them over the next few weeks.”

The Wehby-led Task Force comprises prominent regional academic Sir Hilary Beckles, Charles Wilkin QC, entrepreneur OK Melhado and former Trinidad and West Indies vice-captain, Deryck Murray.

According to CWI, the committee’s purpose is to highlight reforms to the current cricket governing structure in the Caribbean “to achieve greater transparency and accountability to shareholders, as well as all stakeholders”.

The well-known Patterson Report, along with several other reports which have been done, was expected to be used the starting point of the latest review.  Over the last decade, CWI has pushed back on any significant reforms, especially those aimed at addressing the large size of the board.

In 2015, a Governance Review Panel headed by UWI Cave Hill principal recommended the “immediate dissolution” of CWI and the appointment of a new board “whose structure and composition will be radically different from the now proven, obsolete governance framework”.

The then Dave Cameron-led board rejected the recommendation as “impractical” and an “unnecessary and intrusive demand”.

Skerritt had indicated during the election campaign to unseat Cameron earlier this year that he would revisit governance reform once elected president.