LAHORE: Former chief operating officer of Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Shafqat Naghmi is likely to rejoin the cricket board in capacity of Chief Strategy Implementation Officer which is a new post that has been created.

Naghmi is a former bureaucrat and served as COO in the PCB during Dr Nasim Ashraf’s tenure from 2006-08. But when former Test player Ijaz Butt was appointed as PCB chairman in 2008-09, Naghmi resigned from the Board to rejoin the federal government as secretary.

Naghmi, an all powerful COO during his tenure, came under spotlight when he removed the name of off-spinner Saeed Ajmal from the Pakistan squad selected by then chief selector Salahuddin Sallu for a four-nation-nation tournament which was held in Canada in 2008. Naghmi was accused of favouritism when he allegedly used his influence to get little-known opener Shoaib Khan from Quetta included in the team in place of Ajmal.

Meanwhile, the post of Chief Strategy Implementation Officer has reportedly been created to handle the matters concerning the government departments, especially the matter of lease documents for keeping the Board’s control over eight stadia across the country and of getting tax exemption from the government on PCB’s income.

It may be mentioned here that according to a PCB document, it enjoyed control over the eight stadia across the country and was spending Rs 227.6 million on their maintenance annually. However, the lease documents of most of these stadia have not been signed as yet. Among them are Gadaffi Stadium (expenditure Rs 104.2 million), National Stadium, Karachi (Rs 54.1 million), Multan Cricket Stadium (Rs 20.1 million), Pindi Stadium (Rs 13.6million), Abbottabad Stadium (Rs 10.1 million), Bugti Stadium, Quetta (Rs 15.7 mln), Mirpur Stadium (Rs 6.3million), and Garhi Khuda Buksh Stadium (Rs 3.5million).

Published in Dawn, December 29th, 2018