$3M in Cricket Board account now $31,000By KERN RAMLOCHAN Thursday, March 18 2010
FORMER officials of the Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board (TTCB) have been called to account for several financial transactions during their tenure.
The current TTCB administration headed by Azim Bassarath yesterday revealed that more than $3 million which was invested in a leading financial institution had dwindled significantly.
A source said details of the fixed deposit have not been available to the incoming regime despite their taking office on November 1, last.
It was stated that the account originally had $3million but now stands at $31,000 with no trace of where the missing funds went.
President of the TTCB, Bassarath said that it was ironic that members of the past administration boast that they have left the organisation in a healthy financial state when a great deal of money cannot be accounted for.
Bassarath stressed that the matter is being carefully investigated to determine what happened to the TTCB’s money especially those funds that were invested.
The TTCB president noted that accusations about $400,000 being missing by the previous administration were misleading since the money was accounted for by their own general secretary who included the funds in 2005/2006 annual financial report.
Bassarath expressed amusement at a newspaper report in which former TTCB president Deryck Murray took credit for the recent accomplishments of the national team.
“I noticed he (Murray) said that his administration trained 100 new umpires. That statement is untrue because this was an initiative of the Trinidad and Tobago Umpires and Scorers Council which received some funding from the TTCB.
“The TTCB cannot take credit for something initiated by another organisation and in reality it was 67 umpires,” said Bassarath yesterday.
Murray in the article was quoted as saying that he “oversaw successful national and youth teams during his term of office while upgrading Tobago to Zone status.”
“The national Under-17 team was the most successful team under the previous administration. However, it would be silly to consider this because this is a national team playing in a schoolboys tournament. You would expect a national team to beat a school team and to judge success on that would be stupid,” said Bassarath in response.
“Making Tobago a Zone was a demotion for them. Tobago had affiliate status which is more prestigious since they could govern their own affairs. A Zone is under the autonomy of the TTCB and will have to adhere to their rules. However, the current administration does not recognise Tobago as a Zone since the right procedures were not followed for this process,” said Bassarath.
He explained that the East Rand Academy brought to play against the national Under-23 team was quite substandard and the executive questioned the quality of opposition.
“Which South African team comes to the Caribbean and are consistently dismissed for scores like 46, 56 or 60? We expected our boys to win comprehensively when they toured South Africa. Also this tour was in December when Murray was not in office. It is incredible to see him take credit for the success of the team winning and he was not in cricket anymore,” said Bassarath.
