Anand Sanasise says that it is the centralization of West Indies Cricket and a lot of poor financial choices made by the current administration that made him opt to run for the post of President of Cricket West Indies.
Sanasie, who along with his running mate, Calvin Hope of Barbados will be challenging incumbent Ricky Skerritt and his vice-president, Dr. Kishore Shallow when CWI holds its election later this month contended that he has the tools for the job at a press conference yesterday at the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB).
“It’s been 10 years and it’s been quite a learning curve in the 10 years. You would agree that during those 10 years I’ve also been the Secretary of the GCB and then for the entire period the CEO and Corporate Secretary of our franchise,” Sanasie said.
“Obviously you would have noticed the successes we would have had at the GCB level and I basically think that if you get the simple things right, the bigger things are going to fall into place, I served with three presidents at CWI and every one of them have their unique way of doing things but over the past two years I felt that the organization itself became too centralized in Antigua to the detriment of the territorial boards who are the shareholders. I do not think recent business decisions taken were the wise ones to take us forward. I am not seeing new revenue streams being established that could really take us out of the hole we are in,” he said.
“After 10 years sitting on the board I think I have enough experience, I did it this time around because quite a few of my colleagues have been approaching me to say that you can do this for us…you have to because it’s getting from bad to worse,” Sanasie added.
The presidential hopeful indicated that it has been too long to sit idly by and watch the same mistakes being made over and over.
“There are a lot of things I observed and as I said, being there 10 years and seeing the same mistakes being recycled is a problem, it means if you are going to sit there and continue to see that and not do anything then you are surely part of the problem and not the solution so I think I can bring a lot,” he said.
The GCB secretary reasoned that during his time at CWI, Skerritt would often put over to the board that they should “just check what Guyana is doing and replicate that,” but pointed out that since assuming office, “We don’t hear that these days but despite our challenges here we have done reasonably well and I think that there is enough expertise in the region to get it done by ourselves and we are just not doing it.”
One of the major issues that fuelled Sanasie’s desire to run was the financial situation of the body.
“When the new president came in we had forecast that we would have had a bad year that is without considering the COVID situation but we had cash in the bank and we came out of that year doing well. We had like US$11,000,000 in the bank give or take. One of the first decisions taken by the new administration was to payout a US$10,000,000 unsecured loan that the organization had. Now in no business would you not try to negotiate that and try to not payout that amount of cash and thereby putting the organization in a cash crunch and now you have to go running around to borrow to fill the gaps. These are only some of the things I am mentioning.”
A successful businessman himself, the West Demerara Cricket Association president said tough decisions need to be made.
“I think what I can bring is a business perspective to the organization. I believe in investing at the grassroots level. You wouldn’t see the result of any action I would take overnight or in two years or a term but I think we need to make tough unpopular decisions if we are going to succeed.”
