Rameez Raja's telephonic resignation from the post of Chief Executive of the cricket board has created doubts in the game's circles that the former incumbent of the post may stage a comeback to the corridors of power at the Qadhafi Stadium.
There are many reasons for this misgiving and line of thinking. In the first instance there is no formality in Rameez's announcement for there should have been a written document. No doubt Rameez is outside the country, but he should have dispatched his message, containing the decision of keeping away from the board's job in writing through a letter. There is no legality in Rameez's decision and the PCB chairman revealing to the media that he has accepted the resignation should be taken with a pinch of salt.
Secondly, it appears that PCB Chairman Shaharyar M. Khan has a weakness for Rameez as on receiving the phone call from a foreign land, he at once designated him as honorary adviser to the board, knowing full well that the former CE has no time to give to the board's work and he will be staying abroad for some months, not days. No newspaper scribe has queried Shaharyar on this point.
If Shaharyar wants Rameez to give advice on the game's affairs cricket followers fear that more harm than benefit may come to the country's cricket. It is really surprising why the nominated cricket chief considers Rameez as an essential 'commodity' for the PCB.
It was quite late in the day for Rameez to find that he was not doing justice to the cricket board's job when so much money had been spent on his fringe benefits.
People are really surprised as to how Rameez is a regular and permanent employee of the Allied Bank without attending the office and providing any service to that leading financial institution of the country. Certainly he is earning a lot. Besides, he has struck a deal with the Ten Sports for cricket commentaries, where as the fans of the game say he was seen enjoying Tabla to the shame of the country, the cricket board and the Pakistanis. While as CE of the PCB he was also appearing in commercial ads on TV. The PCB chairman can hardly explain how so much latitude was allowed to the top official - No 2 in the board hierarchy, even if time and again the board spokesman and its chairman came out with the explanation that the former holder of the CE post was serving the PCB in an honorary capacity. Honorary yes, but how much he was a burden on the PCB revenue, enjoying a petrol free car, stay in a five-star or four-star hotel throughout the country (the PCB meeting all the expenses), and free telephone. These facilities may have cost the board over a lakh rupees or more in a month.
Everybody knows that Rameez was creating hurdles in the working of the board while giving some time to the camp office of the PCB in Karachi or the PCB headquarters at the Qadhafi Stadium.
There was the advice, reportedly given by the then chief executive, that a detailed report should be taken from the Punjab University of Management on the set-up of the PCB, perhaps a majority of the staff being a surplus one. The management university comprised amateurs who hardly knew anything about cricket, the board establishment, the nature of work being handled by each employee. As a result of the suggestions of the management institution a big-scale unemployment has been created. Gone are the general managers of ground development and media, both active and experienced persons. Nobody knows what will happen to the projects of providing impressive stadia and grassy fields to almost all the cities of the country. The statistician too has been shown the door. The PCB camp office in Karachi and the headquarters in Lahore will shortly become a mess with the treasurer having gone and revealed/many financial bunglings.
One should laud the efforts of the Senate body on sports and culture which discharged its parliamentary obligation and investigated the causes of Pakistan's debacle against India in the March-April cricket series. It decided to interrogate both PCB chairman Shaharyar Khan and the now ousted CE, Rameez Raja. Revelations of mismanagement - financial and administrative - were made much to the surprise and disappointment of the members of the committee and the discomfiture of the cricket followers.
Though Rameez Raja has threatened to take the former Treasurer to a court of law for the allegations made in his report to the senate committee members who were furious over the free hand given to the former CE over not only the managerial issues but the financial matters as well. Some of the members wan the CE to be put on the day by day expanding ECL. They felt the cricket board, registered with the Security and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, almost a corporation, should be accountable to somebody. No doubt the President is the chief patron of the PCB but he has no time to look into the day-to-day working and irregularities and illegalities of the board.
The overseeing institutions, the General Body and the Council, the higher tiers of the board, have been suspended with the result there is no check on the working of the PCB.
It is time that the General Body and the Council are convoked so that the process of check and balance starts and authoritarian or oligarchy in the board comes to an end and democratisation restarts as is in India, England and some other cricket-playing countries.
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