Barbados rejects bail-out plea from West Indies board

The Barbados government has rejected out of hand a plea by the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) to allow it to use Kensington Oval's World Cup (CWC) gate receipts to clear some of its US$15 million debt.

"It would be an act of irresponsible folly for us to take the only thing we would get from the World Cup and give it to the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) to pay its debts," prime minister Owen Arthur said yesterday evening. He urged WICB president Ken Gordon and other officials of the cricket-managing body to "pass over the gate receipts so that we can start dealing with our financial matters at the Oval".

Arthur made the call while addressing Barbados Labour Party (BLP) faithful at Christ Church Parish Centre attending the uncontested nomination of minister of health Jerome Walcott, the sitting Member of Parliament, as candidate for Christ Church South. Arthur said Government had raised "a lot of money" to redevelop Kensington Oval with the understanding that the Local Organising Committee (LOC) would get the gate receipts from the matches played there.

However, he disclosed that Gordon had written him, saying the board had a US$15 million debt "and they want us to agree that we will give them the gate receipts to pay their debts".

The Prime Minister said: "Now I have already written him to say that the Government of Barbados does not and will not agree . . . ." He said while he was sympathetic to the needs of the WICB and wanted to see its debt problem addressed, the board should hand over the gate receipts to the various countries that hosted CWC games "so that they can start paying their debts for building these stadiums".

Arthur also dismissed what he said was a statement by Barbados Cricket Association (BCA) president Tony Marshall that his group owned Kensington Oval. He said what the BCA owned was the land at Kensington Oval. Government owned 90% of the property development company that had been set up to develop Kensington, with the BCA owning the rest, Arthur said. Government, having spent over $100 million to redevelop the Oval, "shall not surrender our interest in it", he declared. But he told the meeting: "We would like the partnership to continue."

The prime minister also announced that he had summoned a meeting with "all concerned" to deal with the ownership issue as well as the management of the Oval. "What the Government owns is ours and we have to put together a company to jointly manage it and a company also has to be put together to jointly own it and manage it, using a partnership."