“Excellent” was how ICC CWC Chief Operating Officer, Don Lockerbie described the running of the Guyana National Stadium for Wednesday’s Super Eight match and he also said that concerns raised last week over preparedness for the tournament were budgetary.
At a press conference yesterday at the stadium, Lockerbie said concerns
about the preparedness of the stadium were “not about the confidence of the Guyanese to finish the stadium, the issue was simply that the LOC (Local Organising Committee) was negotiating so hard to make sure that the budget of the venue was kept seriously to their budget,” he said.
Security, too, Lockerbie said was very impressive and one of the best he has seen. Congratulating the head of the stadium security, Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Slowe and his team, he said they worked according to the ICC CWC master security plan.
“There were things that we felt that needed to be done,” Lockerbie said, to get to the stage of being ready to host the games effectively and so the ICC CWC West Indies Inc 2007 concluded that the CWC would send staff and other contractors to work as a team with the Guyana LOC to finish the job.
This decision was conveyed in a “formal notice” from ICC CWC West Indies Inc 2007 Senior Legal Counsel Derek Jones on March 17, which said the CWC had “lost confidence in the ability of the LOC to provide proper site management for the project up to and through the tournament period” and that CWC proposed to insert a site manager to work with the LOC through the tournament period “to ensure that the stadium is complete, functional and meets the standards for CWC 2007 – running smoothly during the event”.
Lockerbie said Chief Executive Officer of the LOC Karan Singh “has done an excellent job”. He said the LOC and the CWC and its other partners worked together to get the outstanding things done to ensure the opening of the gates on time.
Asked to comment on previous reports that the Super Eight matches might have been shifted to another venue, Lockerbie said the issue of adequate accommodation for the broadcasters during January and February and the failure to meet deadlines were the contributing factors.
He said that at least 70 rooms were required for the broadcasters and there was need to keep them in one or possibly two locations next to each other. He said the government, the LOC and the Buddy’s International Hotel, itself, which had been earmarked for the international media had assured the ICC CWC that the hotel would be completed in time. In January and even in February, he said, “our hotel experts still had their doubts” and those doubts found themselves into the media.
However, he said, with the Guyana government hosting the Rio Summit, they kept an eye on the events and the success of that event was the final milestone in terms of accommodation.
The other issue, Lockerbie said, was respect for the schedule. In hosting the event, he said there were two parts to the operationalising of the stadium. One was that the legacy of the stadium would remain for decades and the other being the preparation in terms of temporary facilities. This included the setting up of tents and generators, which would not have been in place until February. The LOC was working with a budget and coming down to the end there were some disagreements about cost, but in the end, they compromised.
Asked whether it was true that the management of the stadium was wrested from the LOC, Lockerbie said that on February 19, the CWC took over management of all venues and the LOC was an integral part of the CWC. That meant, he said, “
