Latest update April 23rd, 2024 12:59 AM
Apr 01, 2015 Sports
Dear Sir,
Please allow me to respond to the “piece” in Kaiteur’s Sports page captioned “Contractor Chowramootoo sponsors Berbice cricket”. Before doing so, however, let me place my response in some context.
On the 19th March, 2015, a letter in Stabroek News, captioned “Berbicians should not allow their cricket to be hijacked” complained of recent efforts to unseat the longstanding administration of the Berbice Cricket Board. This, of course, came in the wake of another challenge when an injunction was filed against the BCB (SN/11 March, 2015). According to Stabroek News the “injunction was filed last Friday in the Berbice High Court against 16 officials of the Berbice Cricket Board (BCB) including President Anil Beharry preventing them from holding themselves out to be officials of the BCB”.
I responded to the letter of the 19th March, 2015 (SN 21st March, 2015) drawing attention to the fact that since the matter of the Berbice Cricket Board was sub judice public comments appear inappropriate. I also took exception to the fact that the letter made several claims without any substantive evidence, while quite willing to cast doubt on the moral/ethical propriety of others. In the end I suggested that the letter was reflective of the ghost-like character of the BCB itself – dead clubs, life-time members, dubious associations – unwilling to take responsibility for its charges by refusing to sign the letter.
I suspect the writer/s of the letter cannot respond because he/she/they maybe too close to the BCB and therefore liable to be held in contempt of court, given the injunction of the 11th March, 2015.
A little over a week later, 27 March, 2015, another not dissimilar letter from the one of 19th March, 2015, appeared in Kaieteur News. The occasion for that letter is the sponsorship of t20 cricket in West Berbice by a local businessman. The sponsor, it appears “is impressed with the confidence other stakeholders of cricket have shown in the BCB ….. the Board was doing something right.” The businessman, apparently, was also impressed by “the mileage received by sponsors and the level of transparency of the work of the BCB.”
Moreover, according to the letter, the sponsor is disappointed at the manner in which the West Berbice Cricket Association (WBCA) runs cricket in the area …” Sponsors, he claims lack confidence, in the latter. Moreover, there is little organized cricket in the area by the WBCA and when one did appear recently it turned out to be fraudulent, involving “cheques, that were dishonoured by the bank”.
This is followed by a long list of social achievements of the Board in the organization and promotion of “village cricket” and the vast number of sponsors at its disposal.
Nowhere is there any indication that the newspaper gave the WBCA an opportunity to answer the charges brought against it by the sponsor.
Any newsman worth his salt would want to ask the WBCA of the fraud it perpetrated on clubs that participated in its t20 tournament. Should the newspaper in question not want to ask the accused of the story, especially in a case of dishonoured cheques, in order not to perpetrate a slander? Apparently not.
Several phone calls proved revealing. The Editor of Kaieteur Sports indicated that no reporter had been sent out to West Berbice to cover the story. The picture and the story had been received as an e-mail from the Berbice Cricket Board and carried as was received.
The President of the WBCA had not been contacted by anyone to answer to any of the charges against him. He, like I, found out of his fraudulence, from Kaieteur News – an e-mail from the Berbice Cricket Board.
What about the injunction “against 16 officials of the Berbice Cricket Board (BCB) including President Anil Beharry preventing them from holding themselves out to be officials of the BCB”?
Thank you,
Rishee Thakur.
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