According to media reports a new post of Chief Strategy Implementation Officer has been created to accommodate Shafqat Hussain Naghmi again in PCB. Naghmi is a retired bureaucrat who has already worked in PCB as COO from 2006-08. Although we have not learned it officially yet the silence of PCB means that the appointment has been made and from another media report the bureaucrat has also visited Gaddafi Stadium to meet some old officials.
Wasim Khan’s appointment was understandable because he had a vast experience of cricket administration with a couple of English Counties and a former first-class cricketer. And Imran Khan wanted him in the Board. But who managed Naghmi’s return in the PCB is a mysterious question.
In his first stint in the Board he failed to contribute anything of noteworthy. Previously, he got the PCB job by default. Dr. Nasim Ashraf, the then PCB chairman, had actually offered the job to some other bureaucrat who didn’t show any interest. Somehow Naghmi got wink of the development and successfully lobbied for the job. How did he get the job this time is mind-boggling? Naghmi enjoys good terms with Hafeezullah Niazi, my senior at the Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad. But Hafeez has developed serious difference with his brother-in-law Imran Khan so he is unable to influence Naghmi’s return in PCB. Then who? The Civil Establishment. May be. Then again who? Is that the PCB Mafia headed by Subhan Ahmed managed his return?
There are reports that the Mafias are concerned about their future with the appointment of British born Wasim Khan. Khan will be joining the Board any time this month with absolute powers. The PCB Mafia knows that their so-called competence would be badly exposed while working with a thorough professional and competent MD. So they might have envisaged a novel plot in their fertile brain and found in Naghmi a DETERRENT against Wasim Khan. The mystery, however, will solve soon. Whether the induction of Wasim Khan as MD will make any difference we will have to wait.
Naghmi’s appointment is again a serious violation of the present PCB constitution. We are still unaware that if the Constitution has been amended in the first appointment of Khan. Mani who had resolved to run PCB affairs in a transparent way is keeping the whole nation in complete dark.
According to media report, Naghmi will 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 stadiums namely Gaddafi Stadium, National Stadium, Karachi, Multan Cricket Stadium, Pindi Stadium, Abbottabad Stadium, Bugti Stadium, Quetta, Mirpur Stadium and Garhi Khuda Buksh Stadium and it spends Rs 227.6 million on their maintenance annually.
Will Naghmi help in decreasing the expenditure? Will he be successful to get tax exemption for PCB? Or he would be used by the Mafia against Khan. It is now beyond any doubt that charted accountant has succumbed to the pressure of PCB Mafias.