Senators can't dictate the PCB: Chairman Butt

In a retaliatory attack on Pakistan's Senate Standing Committee on Sports, the nation's cricket board chairman Ejaz Butt had said the senators don't have the authority to enforce their decisions on the Board.
    
"The senators can speak to us, keep a check and balance on the working of the Board and also ask for related details and clarifications, but they can't tell us what to do," Butt said in Lahore on Wednesday.
    
His remarks came just two days after he and other PCB officials were grilled by the committee at a special hearing.
    
Senator Enver Baig, who is on the committee demanded Butt's resignation and said he would appeal to PCB chief patron Asif Ali Zardari to change the set-up of the Board to save Pakistan cricket from further destruction.
    
Another senator, Haroon Akhtar had said the PCB had misled the committee on number of issues and their claim that the board was cash strapped was incorrect and not corroborated by the cash assets of Rs 2.7 billion they had at the moment.
    
However, Butt made it clear that some of the senators had misrepresented the facts after the hearing.
    
"We were and are willing to provide them all papers and documents on several issues but instead of appreciating our efforts they have criticised us constantly," he said.

"All I can say is that the senators are representatives of people and we have the highest respect for them. They can ask us for details and they can even explain to us their point of view, but they can't dictate us," he added.
    
The PCB chairman said the power to tell the Board what to do was only with the Sports Ministry or the chief patron, who is also the president of Pakistan.
    
He also said that people who were questioning his claim that the previous PCB set up had left game in a mess due to financial mismanagement would get their answers once the Auditor-General (AG) of Pakistan complete its audit report.
    
"Hopefully the auditor-general would complete their report by end of this month which should reveal all the discrepancies in financial matters," he said.
    
The PCB chairman also made it clear that when former chairman, Nasim Ashraf left the board had only RS 1.6 billion in its hand.
    
"This amount has now increased to 2.7 billion because of a 10 per cent advance payment we got from the broadcasters who got the television rights for next four years," he said.