LAHORE: While the sub-committee of the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Sports has summoned PCB’s chief financial adviser Mohammad Naeem to appear before it on Thursday, it has also termed the recent appointments of Chief Operating Officer (COO) Wasim Bari and many others as illegal.

In a hard-hitting meeting with the PCB officials at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) on Wednesday, the sub-committee headed by convener Saud Majeed discussed the accounts/audit position of the PCB and questioned many decisions recently taken arbitrarily by its chairman Ijaz Butt.

Well-informed sources told Dawn that the members of the committee were not convinced over the briefing given by the PCB acting Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Mushtaq Ahmad and asked the PCB chairman to bring along Chief Financial Adviser Mohammad Naeem on Thursday, the second day of the meeting.

Mushtaq, a senior accounts officer of the PCB, appeared clueless over the various financial queries made by the sub-committee.

Sources further said that the committee was surprised when the PCB chairman informed that the total assets of the PCB were around rupees four billion.

One of the members of the sub-committee objected to the figures quoted by the PCB and said the total value of the assets it owned amounted to around Rs25 billion.

Sources said the committee had decided to suggest to the Auditor General of Pakistan to conduct a special audit of the Board, like it had recently done for the period between 2003 and 2008.

The sub-committee also raised questions that under which clause of the constitution the PCB chairman was giving orders for making various expenditures.

Though the PCB chairman Ijaz defended his position, the committee asked him to present the constitution and show which clause allowed him to do so.

It must be mentioned that the Governing Board’s approval is necessary for all expenditures made by the PCB and the chairman has no powers to spend even a single rupee on his own.

However, sources said the PCB chairman had made many an expenditure without taking the GB members into confidence which includes decisions regarding the renovation work of the National Stadium, Karachi and Niaz Stadium, Hyderabad as well as a stadium in Nawabshah.

Interestingly, the PCB chairman had suspended work midway on large projects such as the renovation of the Pindi Stadium and the Gaddafi Stadium, citing paucity of funds.

The sub-committee has also decided to ask about the TA/DA claimed by both Ijaz and Naeem since their appointment in the PCB. Ijaz has never missed any tour where Pakistan team has played during his tenure as chairman.

The sub-committee also criticised the PCB chief for appointing his own relative Naeem as chief financial adviser. They pointed out that when Naeem was appointed on ad-hoc basis, how could his tenure has spanned several years.

‘An ad hoc post could only last for three or four months,’ they observed.

Sources said the sub-committee also raised objections over the appointment of the PCB officials and said that many of those were not made on merit.

Sources further disclosed that the appointment of Wasim Bari as COO was termed as illegal as it was made without giving any proper advertisement in the newspapers.

Though Bari tried his level best to justify the decision of the PCB chairman of appointing him as the COO, the sub-committee rejected it and said in fact the PCB chairman wanted to appoint him and therefore forced the GB members as late as midnight to sign on the papers for Bari’s appointment as COO after getting rid of another one of his hand-picked official, Saleem Altaf.

The sub-committee observed that even the appointment of Saleem as COO was illegal because the post was not advertised.

Sources said the PCB chairman also failed to convince the body that the Board had incurred losses by holding the home series against Australia and New Zealand at neutral venues.

The sub-committee also criticised the PCB for accepting the ECB offer of just $3.5m for playing a series against England next year, while it could have sold it for $ 8-10 million.

Different directors of the PCB also made presentation to the committee. The members of the sub-committee were Iqbal Mohammad Ali Khan and Syed Tayyab Hussain Aamir.

Some officials of the Ministry of Sports were also present in the meeting.

From the PCB, besides chairman Ijaz Butt and Bari, the other officials who attended the session included Zakir Khan (Director International Cricket), Sultan Rana (Director Domestic Cricket) and Mushtaq (Acting CFO).

APP adds: The sub-committee recommended that the PCB, in consultation with the Ministry of Sports, should finalise its constitution by Jan 31, 2010.

The subcommittee will also play its part in finalising the constitution, said a PCB spokesman.

Sultan Rana made a comprehensive presentation on the state of domestic cricket in Pakistan. The efforts of the PCB at various levels such as u-17, u-19, and senior level were presented to the committee.

Haroon Rasheed, Director National Cricket Academy (NCA), in his presentation pointed the achievements of the academy for grooming and preparing players for various Pakistan teams.