ST JOHN’S, An­tigua – The Bar­ba­dos Crick­et As­so­ci­a­tion (BCA) and the Guyana Crick­et Board (GCB) have con­firmed that they will be in at­ten­dance at Crick­et West In­dies’ (CWI) meet­ing next week for pro­posed res­o­lu­tions to amend the Ar­ti­cles of As­so­ci­a­tion.

In a joint press re­lease, the two as­so­ci­a­tions, which boy­cotted the last meet­ing on De­cem­ber 6, said they would send rep­re­sen­ta­tives to the CWI Spe­cial Meet­ing on Feb­ru­ary 9 in An­tigua, where they would make sub­mis­sions and ex­er­cise their right to vote.

“The Bar­ba­dos Crick­et As­so­ci­a­tion (BCA) and Guyana Crick­et Board (GCB) have agreed to at­tend the meet­ing of Feb­ru­ary 9, 2025, set by CWI to dis­cuss the pro­posed res­o­lu­tions to amend the Ar­ti­cles of As­so­ci­a­tion de­spite their dis­ap­point­ment in the way in which the mat­ter has been han­dled by CWI,” the state­ment read.

The two as­so­ci­a­tions, how­ev­er, con­tend­ed that their con­cerns which had been voiced at pre­vi­ous meet­ings had not been ad­dressed.

They al­so took is­sue with the man­ner in which those con­cerns had been ad­dressed, cit­ing con­flicts of in­ter­est.

“The BCA and GCB have con­tin­u­ous­ly added their voic­es to gov­er­nance re­form and at the last AGM tabled sug­ges­tions aimed at mov­ing the mat­ter for­ward.

“We asked for fur­ther di­a­logue but, in­stead, our con­cerns were re­ferred to the In­tegri­ty & Dis­pute Res­o­lu­tion Com­mit­tee. The com­mit­tee, chaired by a CWI Di­rec­tor, re­ject­ed our po­si­tion,” the state­ment fur­ther added.

“It must be point­ed out that no com­mit­tee has the au­thor­i­ty to over­rule a re­quest of a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the share­hold­ers and fur­ther­more, any Ethics of In­tegri­ty of Dis­putes Com­mit­tee should be in­de­pen­dent and should not be chaired by a sit­ting CWI Di­rec­tor.”

The BCA and GCB al­so re­fut­ed sug­ges­tions that they were against gov­er­nance re­form.

They re­vealed they had writ­ten to the CARI­COM Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al, whom they hoped could find a res­o­lu­tion.

“The nar­ra­tive has al­so been sent that BCA and GCB are against gov­er­nance re­form. This is en­tire­ly mis­lead­ing. We have vot­ed in favour of most res­o­lu­tions in­clu­sive of some that are now re­veal­ing to be ques­tion­able,” the state­ment con­tin­ued.

“In light of no di­a­logue, BCA and GCB have writ­ten the CARI­COM Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al set­ting out our con­cerns and pro­posed way for­ward as it re­lates to the items be­ing tabled sur­round­ing amend­ment of the sec­tion chang­ing the tenure in of­fice of the pres­i­dent and vice-pres­i­dent from two years to three years with term lim­its of three con­sec­u­tive terms.

“It is hoped that this mat­ter will be el­e­vat­ed at the next CARI­COM Heads of Gov­ern­ment meet­ing sched­uled to take place Feb­ru­ary 19-21, 2025, in Bar­ba­dos,” the state­ment fur­ther added.

CMC