Dear Editor,
My attention was drawn to a letter in your January 8th edition, written by Mr Imtiaz Baccus, a Vice President of the Albion Cricket Club and a former Vice President of the Somwaru-led Berbice Cricket Board. In his letter, Baccus stated that the major clubs are not represented at the executive level of the board. As the head of my slate, I personally spoke to several persons from some of the clubs he mentioned and they all found reasons to decline. Among the persons I spoke to, was a senior member of the Albion Club, who promised to call back with an answer and never did. Mr Baccus is the Vice President of the Albion Club and he would know that persons from his club were selected to be appointed executives and selectors and failed to turn up during my first term. Only on Tuesday, I spoke to another senior executive of Albion and asked him to serve on the board as the aim is to involve as much as possible, dedicated persons in the running of Berbice Cricket. The BCB does not have any control over the Sub Associations as clubs in those areas select their leaders. It is now strange that Mr Baccus has a problem with the sub association having four votes but not when two of the three voted for him when he ran for Vice President. As President of the board, I must in the strongest way possible, condemn the statement that our cricket is a one-man show. It is an insult to the collective hard work of my team.
How can one man raise over $20m in cash and kind, organise over 60 cricket tournaments, dozens of developmental programmes and transform our cricket from a long period of dormancy into one of the highest levels ever. Persons like Ameer Rahaman, Dr Cecil Beharry, Angela Haniff, Neil Rudder, Simon Naidu, Robby Saywack, Albert Smith have all worked beyond the call of duty to lift our cricket. I may be the most visible executive but ours has been a collective effort. As per normal, in my victory speech I did call on the new executives to be committed, honest and visionary in their attitude. We must all remember that serving on the BCB is voluntary and persons have their professional life. Our past executive held a total of 20 monthly executives meetings and each of our members had an attendance rate of over seventy five percent. As we prepare for the next two years, I want to reassure all Berbicians that our cricket would continue to go even higher and that our development would continue to be unmatched in Guyana. I would like to urge Mr Baccus to join us on this journey. As long as I remain President of the BCB, there would be a place at the table for everyone who has a vision.
In closing, I would like to inform Mr Baccus that since I became President of the BCB, I have visited over 60 games involving his club Albion and I have only observed him at the venue less than three times. Does this means that you do not perform in your elected position? Those of us who live in glass houses must be careful how we throw stones.
Yours faithfully,
Hilbert Foster
President
Berbice Cricket Board
