The Guyana government will be looking at avenues to retrieve all assets that were once owned by the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) and were transferred to a private company, according to Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Anil Nandlall.
He made this comment at the 23rd Intercessional meeting of the Caricom Heads of Government, in Parimaribo, Suriname, held on March 8-9. The GCB assets have been transferred to a private company. “We have to find a way of getting back these assets, we also have to hand to the police the files to see whether fraud has been committed or perjury has been committed,” Nandlall told the media in Suriname over the weekend.
Nandlall said the government had discovered “shockingly” that the assets of the GCB were transferred about six months ago. He said from all indications, the officials of the GCB have lied to the courts through their statements.
“As you are aware, many affidavits were sworn over the last 6 months by these very people and they have asserted positively before a number of judges that we are interfering with assets of the Guyana Cricket Board. At the time they made those assertions under oath they clearly knew that the assets were hitherto transferred into a private institution, so they knowingly made false statements and that is another issue, what are we going to do with them”, the minister questioned.
The Attorney General recently filed an injunction seeking to prevent the officials of the GCB from holding themselves to be executive members of the Board. The concerned parties are expected to return to court on March 19 to present arguments and other challenges to the injunction filed by Nandlall. The GCB is currently seeking to have the injunction discharged.
According to the Ministry of Legal Affairs website, Ramsey Ali, Alfred Mentore, Dru Bahadur, Anand Kalludeen, Colin Europe, Troy Mendonza, Terrence Holder, Rayon Griffith, Nazimul Drepaul, Raj Singh and Sheikh Ahmad were appointed directors of the new limited liability company on August 29.
Nandlall on that site stated that by a Deed of Transfer executed by Chetram Singh, former President and Trustee of GCB, and Lionel Jaikrarran, also a trustee of GCB, transferred to D. E. B Essential Organisation Incorporated all assets and properties of the GCB and thereby authorised D. E. B Essential Organisation Inc. to take all necessary legal steps to regularise ownership of the properties.
Respect Caricom Heads
In the meantime, cricket legend Clive Lloyd said that the move by government to intervene in the cricket woes was a necessity as things were getting out of hand. He said, “It was something that we had to do, it was reflected in the constitution of the ICC.” Lloyd added that “the government wasn’t doing something on a whim, they have taken a decision and now we just want to get out cricket in line.” That aside, the legend said there is a great need for a change in cricket.
“We do need a change in our cricket, our system is a bit archaic we need to move forward, all the other countries are moving forward with different things we need to do so if we want to catch up with them, our cricket is still behind in the regional level and test match level, we have a few green shoots but they are coming through, we are still not moving from that 8th position and we have been there for some time. We need to have a different system and we need to work at it and you can’t say you want your cricket to turn around unless you are doing something about it, you have to put things in place and there are quite a few things that need to be put in place,” Lloyd declared.
He also noted that the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) must respect all heads of government of Caricom, noting that the opportunities that currently exist would not have been possible without the input of the Caribbean governments.
“We have to respect everybody, you can’t just want to tell a prime minister of a country anything and then want to apologise, the point is that we have to respect people and if you don’t respect people, then you have to respect their position,” Lloyd told the media in reference to the statements made by WICB in response to Jamaica’s Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller. “And a prime minister here is very important, it was a mistake and I hope that they rectify that. A country like Jamaica there has been no cricket in 2 years… and Guyana has had games taken away from them at a stroke and it is not right and I don’t think that’s the way to go about it. We should have a better system… like in ENGLAND, where you have a chance of having at least one or two games – you have stadiums to maintain.”
He believes that it is necessary that government be involved in the affairs of cricket noting that security and maintenance of stadiums would not be maintained without government intervention. Additionally, Lloyd said that he would like to see the presidency of WICB should be rotated.
“I would like to see we go back to the old system where the president after every two years goes to a different country; that to me would eliminate quite a few things.” Lloyd continued: “We need to have involvement at all levels, we can’t just say it is our cricket and damn the rest, the point is that this is the glue that keeps us together and it has been going on for years, and we want to keep it not in the same way it is but inclusive and we have to look at it seriously, it is a very serious situation.”
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