Following at least three no shows at the sitting of Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC), chairman of Jamaica Cricket 2007 Limited, Dr Wayne Reid, on Tuesday showed up before the hard-hitting committee to set the record straight in relation to the stewardship of the company he chaired.

Reid sought to put to rest any suggestion that Jamaica Cricket 2007 Limited had mismanaged the local component of the staging of warm-up matches and the opening ceremony, which did not yield a profit.

He told PAC members that the bidding to stage aspects of Cricket World Cup 2007 in Jamaica was approved and signed off by then Prime Minister P.J. Patterson, former Finance Minister Dr Omar Davies and a member of the local organising committee.

Budget clear

Reid said the contracts the company entered into to stage the event were fully inspected by the Attorney General's Department.

"The last set of negotiations we held with ICC WI at the Pegasus it took almost a whole day with the attorney general, solicitor general and other officers there," he said.

The chairman of the local company set up to organise the tournament in Jamaica insisted that the "contracts were well known to the Government of Jamaica ... . Our budgets of expenditure were very clear, at no time did we, as one of your members said 'splurge' or anything like that".

Stipulated requirements

The company, according to Reid, did not run an overdraft and made it clear that its operations were above board.

He said the company executed its mandate in accordance with the stipulated legal and financial requirements.

The PAC members have been up in arms about the loss accrued by the local company in which the Jamaican taxpayers were now being asked to foot the bill.

Some PAC members wanted to know whether Jamaica was the only Caribbean country which co-hosted the tournament that had recorded a financial loss.

Exorbitant fees

However, Reid pointed out that estimated costs to stage the event in Jamaica had increased signi-ficantly due to exorbitant fees.

Reid asserted that neither the public nor private sector assisted the company when it approached them to rent or purchase items to facilitate the tournament.

"We got some ridiculous costs from people who we had to deal with as sole providers," he said. He said the cost for parking on government properties was ridiculous. "Our costs in terms of what we estimated in the first instance, in a number of areas moved up," he stressed.

Tedious task

According to Reid, there were two revisions to the original estimates that were submitted to the ministry of finance. He said each time the company approached the ministry of finance to request additional funds, "they were berated by the minister and sometimes by his senior officials".

"It was almost an item by item description and explanation to get funds approved by the ministry of finance," he added.

However, committee member Andrew Gallimore wanted to know whether the Jamaica Cricket Association, which had a 25 per cent stake in the staging of the event in Jamaica, would absorb a quarter of the US$4.2 million loss incurred by Jamaica Cricket 2007 Limited.

Chairman of the PAC, Dr Omar Davies, asked Deputy Financial Secretary Rolda Grey to pursue the matter and provide the committee with an answer.