Tony Becca, Contributing Editor
ICC CWC West Indies 2007, the body responsible for staging next year's Cricket World Cup in the West Indies, is under fire.
The ICC CWC West Indies 2007, with Chris Dehring as managing director, has been accused of being unprofessional by Opening Cere-mony 2007 (OC07), a company set up to bid for the opening ceremony, and claimed it won, has spent a lot of money preparing and is in the process of taking legal action.
The OC07 claims that based on payment due, according to a memorandum of understanding, ICC CWC West Indies 2007 owes it US$50,000.
The opening ceremony, scheduled to be staged at the Multi-purpose Stadium Facility in Trelawny, will be organised and produced by Jamaica's Local Organising Committee but, according to OC07, it should be doing so. According to OC07 board members, Margaret Miller of Creative House, Angela Thame of TTP, and William Yapp of Snap One Productions, OC07 tendered a bid to produce the opening ceremony, made a formal presentation, and won the bid.
According to Miller, 15 companies from around the world had tendered bids and OC07 was the only Jamaican company and all the ICC CWC West Indies 2007 people at the presentation were impressed with its bid.
"We went all out for the contract, we had a world-class team, we had people from Jamaica, from around the Caribbean and from outside the Caribbean," said Miller. "They were so impressed that they said that the cost must be more than the US$2.5 million they had budgeted for it. They asked what the cost is, and we told them US$5 million, and they said OK."
Unethical, unprofessional
With that, the OC07 says it began working and employed top-flight professionals in different areas.
Sometime after, and after hearing it on the street, OC07 said they got an email from ICC CWC West Indies 2007, saying that the deal was off.
"That was unethical and unprofes-sional," said Thame. "After we were told we had won the bid, we spent a lot of money getting things started, we spent a lot of money travelling abroad to make presentations as requested by Mr. Dehring, we spent a lot of money paying for professional work, and on top of the US$50,000 owing to us through the MoU, we want to get back our money."
