By Calvin Roberts
President of the Essequibo Cricket Board (ECB) Alvin Johnson had earlier told this reporter that he was looking to revamp cricket in the Cinderella County and in order to do so, certain facilities needed to be in place.
At a simple ceremony held in the boardroom of the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) on Monday, Johnson witnessed the signing of an agreement between the GCB and contractor Dharam Rajah for the building of a 14-room hostel by the latter under the Stanford Project funds allocated to Guyana following the historic 2006 triumph.
The two-storey building will be 70’ x 35’ and is being constructed at a cost of $30M.
It will be erected on the northern side of the Anna Regina Community centre ground and will comprise two concrete pitches and two practice pitches with overhead roofing.
Work is scheduled to commence on Monday with the contractor facing a liability clause if he is unable to hand over the building within the five months he stipulated.
President of the GCB, Chetram Singh, who was also present at the signing of the contract, revealed that the penalties for the deadline if not met are inked in the contract and the GCB has assigned Marcel Gaskin technical director to oversee the execution of the project.
He also stated that the hostel will help with the diversification of the game in Guyana.
“The cost of accommodation is a major problem when we take matches to outlying areas. Thus having hostels in all three Counties gives us the opportunity to diversify the game to those areas. Because of a high cost, we have to resort to hosting most of our competitions especially the Castrol Under-15, the Under-17 and GTM Under-19 Inter County competitions in Demerara.
“But with the completion of this hostel in Essequibo, we will be taking some of these games amongst others to that County.”
Singh added:“The large geographic build of Essequibo is another factor that must be taken into consideration with the construction of this hostel. The ECB will now be in a position to host teams not only from other Counties, but within their own Diaspora also.”
Singh took the time to state that two more hostels will also be constructed when the Guyana Sugar Corporation releases the land for same.
“We are looking at building another hostel in Demerara and have already identified a piece of land in La Bonne Intention and are waiting on Guysuco to release same so work can commence.
“Also we will be building one in Albion, Berbice. The GCB is working assiduously hard to diversify the game of cricket here in Guyana and the construction of these hostels will aid in the diversification process that we will be embarking on soon.”
Meanwhile, Johnson expressed his delight at having the hostel constructed as he intends to make Essequibo a worthy competitor in local cricket especially at the senior level.
“As president of the ECB, I must say how happy I am. This hostel will be having elite cricket preparations facilities which will help with the preparation of our teams in many ways than one. We will have both concrete and turf pitches at our disposal and with the overhead roofing, our players will have the opportunity to rectify and strengthen their cricketing abilities all year round.”
He also expressed his satisfaction in Rajah who collected a $5M advance after the signing of the contract and also had constructed the Amerindian Dormitory along the Anna Regina ground sightscreen and media centre before with the latter falling under the Stanford Project.
Secretary of the GCB and president of the Georgetown Cricket Association (GCA) Bish Panday who signed on behalf of the GCB expressed his delight for the Essequibo County.
“We often talk about Essequibo’s performance, but if some of the other areas had as much constraints due to the size of the county, they too might have found it difficult to attain the level of success that they enjoy.
Despite the few problems, I am very passionate about this project which was a pep dream of mine and take the opportunity to commend everyone who was instrumental in getting it off the ground,” Panday said.
