It appears as though the numerous faults in the Cricket Administration Act will finally be exposed. The Guyana Cricket Board held its Annual General Meeting yesterday at the GCC Pavilion with only two of the three members participating. The Essequibo Cricket Board and the Demerara Cricket Board attended with their full complement of delegates, while Berbice Cricket Board was absent.

Before the meeting started, there was some confusion on the quorum as the body of the bill stated that 14 delegates should be present, while the GCB constitution attached has a scheduled required 15 delegates from at least two members. Eighteen delegates were present which eliminated the problem.

In the Cricket Administration Act Page 17 Article 10 (d) states “Nominations (with resumes) for all positions on the Executive Committee of the Guyana Cricket Board must be made and seconded by Members at the October OGM preceding the Annual General Meeting at which elections are to be held, and submitted to a select committee for ratification and then circulated to the County Boards. In the event that any Members” nominee becomes disqualified or ineligible for any reason provided for by these rules, substitute nominations may be made by the Member no later than fifteen (15) days prior to the date of the AGM, provided that the substitute nominee must be a former or a serving member of a County Board or the Guyana Cricket Board”.

The GCB, in October 2014 only received one nomination for each of the executive positions currently occupied and those nominations were seconded and ratified by a select committee. Considering the clause stated above there will never be a need for a GCB Elections as it only has three (3) members, so when nominations are done at the October meeting by one member and seconded by another the elections are virtually over. Even if the elections are to be held on another date in brings in question the issue of nominations and if an election can be held outside of the month of January. From all indications the Cricket Administration Act has created more chaos.
It appears that this loophole may very well have been an oversight in the act, however, a senior executive of the GCB confirmed that this was identified by the GCB presentation to the select committee of parliament but this and other faults were ignored by its drafters. Also all these anomalies were identified when the MOA was drafted and negotiated between the WICB/GCB/GOG and the opposition parties. The government reneged on all its commitment outlined in that MOA as they never responded to the WICB and signed the bill into law with all the identified flaws.

Meanwhile, those nominated and returned to office are Mr. Dru Bahadur as President, Mr. Fizul Bacchus as First Vice President, Mr. Anand Sanasie as Secretary, Mr. Viren Chintamani as Assistant Secretary, Mr. Anand Kalladeen as Treasurer, Mr. Rajendra Singh as Marketing Manager, Mr. Colin Europe as Competitions Chairman and Mr. Andy Ramnarine as the Public Relations Officer.
There were no nominations for the positions of Second Vice President and Assistant treasurer so a decision was taken to defer these until legal advice is obtained.

Barcellos, Narine and Company was appointed as the Auditor while Mr. Ramdeo Kumar and Lalta Digamber were returned as the trustees.

While some questions still exist on if the Minister sets the date of the Elections as against the date of the Annual General Meeting, Kaieteur Sport observed that election of officer bearers in only one item on the agenda for an AGM of the GCB.

(Kaieteur News)