Michael Holding, legendary West Indies fast bowler, has accused the Cricket West Indies of making questionable financial decisions and of not forwarding a donation from the BCCI to former players.
Reading content from a ‘confidential' audit report of Pannell Kerr Foster (PKF), Holding raised several valid questions in a YouTube video.
"One item I am going to touch upon along with others is that in 2014, the BCCI donated half a million dollars to WICB to help past players. It was a donation by the BCCI. I am a past player, and I am not saying I want any of it. But I know a lot of past players who have not heard one cent of the half a million dollars going to any of them. I am absolutely sure if they had done that, they would have made a big hullabaloo about it. Where are that half a million dollars?” he said.
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Apart from this, Holding also put the CWI in a lot of trouble. "Former president to prime ministers have been calling for forensic audit over the governance in cricket in the Caribbean. The current regime did not do a forensic audit, but they did an audit. They had the report in January, but they never released it. The 60-page audit report does not look good. It is a damning and harsh report. I want to delve into it. I picked three reports,” he said.
"On August 8, 2018, the CWI received $1,34,0200 on behalf of Dominica Cricket Association from a third party which appears to be an off-shore corporation. In this particular situation, CWI was a financial conduit. This money was paid over to DCA in three tranches – USD 104,100 on November 16, 2018, USD 15,700 on August 2, 2019, and USD 14,400 on September 21, 2019," he quoted the report.
"What due diligence was performed to ensure that the source of the funds was legitimate and that the funds were clean from an anti-money laundering compliance perspective? We have become aware of several matters that cause consternation with respect to whether things were done in the best interest of Cricket West Indies," Holding asked.
Holding was also not convinced when it was said that the report was confidential.
He said, “They can claim confidentiality if they are a private company. You cannot claim to be a private company if you have public shareholders. The share-holders of CWI are six regional boards. They are hiding behind a clause to not release the report.”
"I am not accusing them of laundering money, nor does the auditor,” Holding mentioned.
CWI chief Ricky Skerritt told Radio Jamaica Sports that he will be following up on the audit's recommendations. He, however, denied any cover-up and said the audit would remain confidential.
Here is the video:
(news18.com inputs)
