KARACHI, Oct 14: The new Chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board, Dr Nasim Ashraf, just one week after assuming charge, has started a clean-up operation by asking for a closer look into the running of the Cricket House project in Lahore.

It is learnt that the internal audit of the Pakistan Cricket Board will start next week and the Cricket House affairs figure prominently in them. “It has been found out that the director administration, Major Ahmed Manj and some other junior officials have spent around eight million on just renovating the Cricket House that includes purchase of a lift costing 2.2 million which is yet to be installed,” an inside source from the board disclosed.

“It has transpired that nine tenants of the Cricket House are in litigation with the board over payment of rent for the last seven years,” he said.

The five-floor Cricket House is a property owned by the board in a prime location of Lahore. Each floor has some 11,000 square feet to be rented out for offices and to companies.

“The auditors and the chief financial operating officer of the board have been asked to look into the matter and find out how best to put the Cricket House affairs in order or perhaps even sell it off if required,” he added.

He said the CFO, Asadullah Khan whose termination orders were issued by Manj, had been suspended but he has been asked to continue working again. “Manj had charged Asadullah with financial irregularities in his previous job with the Defence Housing Authority. But now the board has restored him and sent a letter to the DHA to first substantiate the charges.”

“The feeling is that Asadullah was victimised because he had refused to follow some orders and approve some financial recommendations by his superiors.”

Sources also disclosed that Athar Waqar Azeem, who was hired by the board as consultant to prepare a feasibility report on the cricket board’s own sports channel, had been paid 1.5 million as salary. “He has also been removed now.”

Incidentally, at the last ad-hoc committee meeting chaired by Dr Nasim it was decided to first prepare a feasibility report before embarking on the project. “When this idea was first floated by Shaharyar, it was suggested by Nasim that the board should concentrate on cricket matters and not get into areas in which it lacked the necessary expertise.”

The future of Riaz Mahmood, a senior marketing consultant hired by Shaharyar, is also said to be uncertain at the moment. Dr Ashraf, in his initial meetings with his staff as well as the press, had made it quite clear that he wanted transparency in PCB’s working and was keen to clean up the mess in the board.