PCB announces Rs 2.6 billion budget; will make stadium in Garhi Khuda Bakhsh
Pakistan Cricket Board has allocated a 2.6 billion rupees budget for the fiscal year 2010-11. The announcement comes after a gap of two years which was approved at a meeting of the General Council of the http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755 Cricket Board in Lahore on Wednesday.
The board has estimated an amount of Rs. 2.6 billion rupees in revenues for the next season while the expenditure is projected to sit at Rs 2.3 billion. Consequently, the PCB has been able to present a surplus amount of 0.3 billion rupees in its 2010-11 budget.
The budget was approved by less than 50% majority of the governing board of the PCB. Out of a total of fifteen members, only seven were present in the meeting summoned on Wednesday. The meeting was chaired by the Chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board Ijaz Butt. The chairman told reporters after the meeting that the board is trying to complete the Governing Board’s strength but it follows a procedure and would take time.
Three sitting members of the Governing Board including Wazir Ali Khoja, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Naeem-c78451 Gillani were not present in the meeting. Miandad and Khoja did not attend the meeting because both people were not happy with Ijaz Butt while Naeem is currently out of Pakistan. Due to their absences, the meeting of the governing board was reduced to seven members for the budget meeting.
The governing board should consist of 15 members including the chairman of the PCB. Six technocrats had relinquished the governing board membership as a protest when the current PCB chairman http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Ijaz-Butt-c64128 took charge in October 2008. Wazir Ali was brought in on one of the vacant seats while the other five are still vacant.
The constitution requires a minimum of 50 per cent majority of the house to approve any move. So the budget passed by the governing board with less than fifty percent is a clear violation of international rules.
Ijaz Butt revealed that the last two budgets showed a glaring deficit but the board is hoping to earn profits in the 2011 season. Ijaz Butt said that the income from the Champions Trophy
and the World Cup would help the PCB earn surplus revenues in the days to come.
PCB Chairman Ijaz Butt said, “One (reason) is the International Cricket Council has finally released our share of funds from the organisation of ICC events after we submitted them audited reports of previous budgets and secondly we are curtailing expenses and reducing manpower in the Board”.
As a consequence to the financial irregularities, the Pakistan Cricket Board has not awarded annual increments to its employees in the last few years. When asked about the issue, Butt said that over-staffing has already increased the administrative expenditure of board. He revealed that at the time his joining, there were 70 to 75% surplus staff working with the board so he adopted a downsizing policy that reduced the strength from 1200 to 600 people. Giving the example of the BCCI, Butt claimed that they have a total of 29 employees while Cricket http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746 employs around 27 members in the entire hierarchy.
“Then 99.9 per cent of the staff is already over-paid. This was also pointed out to me by some members of the GB and we have asked for guidelines from the Prime Minister in this respect,” added the chairman.
Ijaz Butt denied the impression that he had a disjointed relationship with Wasim Bari. He said that the media is spreading rumours that have no reality at all. He said that Bari is still performing as the COO of the PC and has no differences with him.
He remained closed lipped when asked about the possibility of having a bilateral series with arch-rivals http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750 at a neutral venue in the future. The chairman said that the issue is highly off the record so he cannot comment about it.
The chairman also revealed that out of the Rs 2.6 billion budget, 18.5 million rupees would be spent on the construction of a cricket stadium in Garhi Khuda Bakhsh.
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