LAHORE: While Governing Board of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) on Saturday approved a deficit budget for 2009-10, amounting to Rs1.52 billion after a delay of more than four months, it also gave conditional approval to the controversial budget for 2007-08 at a meeting held here on Saturday.

The budget for the current fiscal year should have been approved before July 1, 2009, but was delayed due to lacklustre attitude of the PCB.

Wazir Ali Khoja, a member of the Governing Board, while talking to reporters after attending the meeting, said the budget had been approved.

Moreover, he said, the audited accounts of the budget for 2007-08 were also approved with some conditions to take corrections for rectifying the audit objections.

The 2007-08 budget has a long list of objections but as the current Governing Board members were not at the helm at that time, they were not ready to approve it.

However, when the PCB Chairman Ijaz Butt informed the GB members that the International Cricket Council (ICC) did not accept the accounts for the said period, resulting in $60 million fund not being released to the PCB, the members — following ‘the ideology of necessity’ — approved the accounts with the recommendations to remove the objections raised by the auditors.

At the last meeting, GB members had refused to approve the accounts, but even the chairman PCB sent it to the ICC to get release the funds.

Sources said the GB members had recommended the PCB chief to take effective corrective measures to remove the objections.

Upon it the PCB chairman, ensured them that he would write a letter to the Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to seek his guidance to take action against those who were responsible in adopting wrong procedure in making payments.

The chairman told the GB members that their approval was necessary, otherwise the ICC would not release the funds to the PCB.

Interestingly, PCB chairman, as then member of the GB, himself had raised various objections over the 2007-08 budget. And to have answers of the objection he could not receive any reply from then chairman Dr Nasim Ashraf.

Sources said the PCB had no answer to many objections, including two — one against making the payments to former captain Inzamam-ul-Haq of Rs10 million and the other concerning the payment of Rs1 million grant, according to the record, to cricketer Ijaz Ahmed Junior.

Sources said, Shafqat Naghmi, the then PCB chief operating officer, paid Rs10 million to Inzamam, on the eve of his retirement from international cricket for which he (Naghmi) had no authority.

Only PCB chairman (Dr Nasim Ashraf) had the authority to sign such a big amount, sources added.

Moreover, sources said the PCB chairman received a letter from Ijaz Ahmed Junior that he did not receive any amount in grant. In the letter he claimed that though he had requested for the grant, he did not receive any reply from the board.

Khoja presided over the second session of the meeting as Ijaz Butt left when Javed Miandad was to present the report on the new domestic structure of cricket in Pakistan, due to the death of a relative.

Though Khoja did not announce the budget volume, it was learnt the deficit is around Rs620 million and the estimated budget is approximately Rs1.52 billion.

Asked as the budget was approved after a delay of more than four months, which authority allowed the PCB to spend money during this four-month period, Khoja reckoned in big organisations like the PCB a delay could occur, insisting the chairman was a competent authority to run the board affairs according to the situation.

Khoja said the second point on the meeting agenda was related to the game’s domestic structure but the house could not create consensus on it as besides Miandad, other members namely Shakil Sheikh (GB member), Director NCA Haroon Rasheed and Director Domestic Sultan Rana also gave their respective presentations.

‘All gave good recommendations to improve the [game’s] domestic structure but we lacked consensus. Therefore, all the presenters have been asked to sit together to prepare a final draft by Dec 15,’ Khoja stated.

Asked since the current GB members had completed their two-year tenure with the end of Saturday meeting, how it would consider the recommendation for the domestic structure on Dec 15, Khoja disclosed the current members would continue their job till approval of the new members by the PCB patron, President Asif Ali Zardari.

Meanwhile, sources said the GB members did not approve the minutes of the last meeting, held on Oct 14, because the chairman did not ask for it.

The members, sources added, had some objections over the minutes, because in the last meeting it had been decided to only continue Mohammad Naeem as the Chief Financial Adviser (CFA) till Nov 30, this year.

But sources said in the minutes no date was mentioned about the removal of Naeem, who is a close relative of the PCB chairman.

Surprisingly, a seasoned chartered accountant, Naeem could not settle the accounts of the last series against Australia (held in the UAE earlier this year), despite a lapse of five months.