Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves has commented on the issue, as police officers who provide security during the ICC Cricket in St. Vincent continue to lament that payments have not been forthcoming.
Gonsalves said on Wednesday that the Ministry of Finance brought the matter to his attention on Tuesday evening.
“That has not come to me in any way before. As far as I understood it, the ICC has not passed over the money to Cricket West Indies to pay a lot of people. Dr. Shallow, who heads Cricket West Indies, said he’s waiting on the ICC.”
Dr. Kishore Shallow, the president of CWI, announced in August that all service providers for the recent T20 World Cup match in St. Vincent would receive payment by the end of August.
Shallow, however, stated that he had no idea what arrangements would have been made internally with the police in response to a question from Host of OMG Dwight Joseph.
Gonsalves continued that, “This now seems to be whether it is the cricket West Indies to pay for the security at the cricket in Saint Vincent. I’ll have to be advised on that. Somebody drew Mr. Shallow’s language to my attention; somebody must have put words in Dr. Shallow’s mouth because if those words are correct, they do not sound like his usual words. Unless, of course, those words have become increasingly political as a consequence of I don’t know what, but I’ve been around long enough and I’ll find out in due course.”
Recent reports from the online publication ANN indicate that they obtained voice notes from a police union representative stating;
“Mr. Shallow told me that the hold-up with the money is due to an ongoing reconciliation between the government and the ICC,” the leader said. “They’re trying to figure out which portion the government is supposed to pay and which portion the ICC is responsible for.”
