THE North Essequibo Cricket Committee (NECC), in a press release recently, has once again repeated its call for the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) to conduct free and fair elections.

North Essequibo, which is a constituent member of the Essequibo Cricket Board (ECB), strongly condemned further delay in the process to have elections.

The Committee, in its statement, describes the current state of affairs as unacceptable and a violation of the fundamental and constitutional rights of the county boards to elect its officials. The Committee is fully supportive of the Cricket Administration Bill which was passed in Parliament to govern cricket locally and nationally.

One of the requirements governing the act is the appointment of an Ombudsman by the Minister of Sport. This is still to materialise and the Committee has noted with concern the hasty appointment of an Ombudsman by the Guyana Cricket Board.

Without transparency at the level of the GCB, the Committee notes that the national sport stands to suffer severely at the hands of a selected few, who have been systematically isolating certain constituencies from the administration of the game.

In one instance, the Committee cited a reprehensible act by the senior official of the GCB to stymie the career of a promising young umpire of Amerindian descent. The Committee noted that the individual was selected by the panel to officiate in the last regional Under-15 tournament held in Guyana but under the instruction of the official, he was unceremoniously removed from the list.

He would have been the first person from the Pomeroon to officiate at the national level. The Committee also stated that the acting president of the GCB is the Chairman of the Pomeroon Cricket Committee, yet he failed to represent the individual from being discriminated. The individual has since abandoned any further attempt to pursue his dreams.

The official of the GCB is also a Director of Cricket West Indies and sits on the panel of selecting Regional umpires. These types of autocratic and destructive acts are frighteningly creeping into the administration of cricket which the Committee is demanding must cease immediately.

The Committee further reiterates its call for the Minister with responsibility for Sport Dr George Norton to intervene swiftly and end the current impasse of the illegal GCB which has not held democratic elections for the past six years.