Cricket is a draining and emotional sport. Like cricket, this post is emotional and long, so brace yourselves.
I have just read the ‘draft’ constitution of the PCB which has been passed by the Standing Committee of the Senate for approval to the President (also the Patron of PCB) – which means it is past the debating stage. It is likely that this final draft will become part of the PCB as soon as it is approved by him. Of course, given how much the General has regard for constitutions it is unlikely that he will even give it a single look before signing it. Then again, he doesn’t really need to, given that it does give him absolute power and it WILL make things worse rather than any better.
Remember that the constitution was ‘demanded’ by the Senate for the proper functioning of the PCB. I don’t know how else to put this, but whoever (hopefully legal experts) drafted and scrutinised it deserves to be shot (metaphorically of course)! I thought the Senate would be ready to rip apart this Constitution given that they had been demanding that it be presented to it nearly every week for more than a year at least. Alas, they just wanted a page with constitution written on the front and within it could contain gibberish or nothing at all.
Mainly, the problematic provisions concern Part III of the Constitution – The Functioning of the Executive Committee. Of course, these are the essential provisions that concern the government of the PCB- if the governing body can’t work, how can the PCB? The overarching problem with the constitution is that it is undemocratic. The entire reason for having any constitution is to ensure a balance of power. This is far from it! Instead it resembles exactly like the current government running our country: One king, and the rest mere pawns.
I’ll first summarise the relevant provisions of the Constitution and then consider a scenario which I can tell you would likely arise everyday in the running of the PCB (this part is a bit legalese..):
(a) Who can amend the constitution? Now this will make you laugh or fume and it reflects exactly the current state of affairs in our country. Basically, like the 1973 Constitution the General can amend this constitution as he pleases. Clause 45 (part IX) states that upon the ‘motion’ of the board, the Patron may amend the constitution ‘in consultation with the Federal Government.’ We all know what ‘consultation’ means in our country.
(b) Chairman appointed by the Patron (Part I, Clause 7)! This appointment should have been through another democratically appointed body like the Senate Standing Committee on Sports or the General Body (which has representatives from district cricket associations from around the country). There is no harm in letting the Patron ‘recommend’ someone but in order to have a truly responsible and qualified individual there has to be scrutiny which there won’t be if one person is held responsible for his appointment.
(c) How do you remove the Chairman in case he is not right for the job, like right now? You can’t under this constitution! Not even the Patron himself can remove the Chairman unless get this, the Chairman himself says ‘I want to be removed,’ and the Executive Committee decides to do so (Part III, Clause 16).
(d) There will be sixteen Members on the Executive Committee. Eight will be appointed (of which only a minimum of two have to be former cricketers) by the Patron and then another eight others will be appointed by the General Body. Obviously, the first half of the board will be entirely independent. It really does defy logic as to why they even bothered having this constitution.
The Scenario:
Lets say that the Chairman, appointed by the Patron wants to reduce funding for the District Cricket Councils (DCCs) and instead wants to put all the money in the PCB kitty. He knows it will get considerable opposition from the independently appointed members (since they represent the DCCs) and the two former cricketers appointed by the Patron, as they themselves had been groomed by the DCCs. You would have thought that given that the majority of members (10-6) are against the idea the Chairman wouldn’t be able to do this. Actually, he can, quite easily:
Basically, if the Chairman wants to call a meeting of the Members to make the decision, the Chairman doesn’t have to give any form of ‘reasonable’ time for the members to attend. This means that he can give notice to the members today for a meeting to be held ‘today’ to consider the decision, knowing full well that more than half the Committee members are in different provinces Then you’ll ask- surely, the Chairman can’t pass the funding decision on his own? You’re right, he can’t. The problem is though, that he requires only 6 members [is this a coincidence?]to attend to make that decision. Guess who the 6 members would be? It is likely that it will be the 6 members chosen by the Patron, who are likely to be the King’s loyal guard based in Lahore, the PCB’s headquarters.
I wish there was something we could do, because as a nation we love cricket and if the PCB can’t function and make decisions properly then the Pakistan Cricket Team will continue to depend upon ‘raw’ talent rather than ‘groomed’ talent like the Australians and the South Africans. Also, I am astonished as to why there has been such little attention paid to this issue (as far as I’m aware) in the media and elsewhere even though there was a lot of hoopla when the PCB was failing to present the constitution to the Senate. One thing is clear: our law-makers aren’t worth their salt.
Draft PCB Constitution. This file is quite large (2.6 mbs) so it may take a while for it to load for slower connections.
I had read this much earlier, but did not have to time to comment then. Interesting observations Saad.
This year we gave our worst possible performance in a World Cup. Although it was not completely due to mismanagement I think the PCB had a huge part to play in it. What is worse is, as this constitution shows, that we have learnt nothing from it.
This constitution would guarantee the PCB being run in the same way as evertyhing else in this country. The President decides the chief, the chief knows nothing of the job at hand, the chief messes up, people talk about it in the press, the government ignores the issue as if it doesn’t exist, the people soon forget about it (not because they lose interest, but because something even more interesting has just happened) and the chief continues to enjoy the benefits associated with that job.
So what about accountability? What accountability? When someone is appointed we are asked to believe that there is noone better for the job then the person nominated by the President and so if he can’t do it well then noone can. It’s the same with Nasim Ashraf. The trouble is that even the old homeless man I see from my flat window right now would probably do a better job. At least he would show more energy and innovaation. He would definitely not pass discouraging comments about the team’s religious practices in the press. I agree that that is something that needs to be dealt with, but for God’s sake, you had Inzimam coming in the newspapers saying that the chief should mind his own business. That just says a lot about the respect that the man commands.
I can’t see a single positive to come out of Mr Ahraf’s tenure so far, however, I have heard more comments in the press from him than any other PCB chief. He can ‘talk the talk’, but can he ‘walk the walk’?