Managing director and CEO of ICC Cricket World Cup (CWC) 2007 Incorporated, Chris Dehring, has rejected claims by the Local Organising Committee (LOC) that the CWC's accreditation contractors, Rushmans, were to be blamed for last Thursday afternoon's pandemonium at St. George's College.

There was chaos at the school Thursday afternoon as several performers, mostly students, had to leave without their accreditation documents for the opening ceremony scheduled for this afternoon, after the LOC announced that documents for all performers should have been collected at the school on Thursday.

Erroneous announcement

Events manager for the LOC, Lisa Olgilvie, said the chaos ensued because of an erroneous announcement by the LOC that all permits should be collected at the school Thursday afternoon. But she then noted that the LOC was not the body responsible for the accreditation of the performers.

Responding to that comment, Mr. Dehring, in a statement to regional media houses, said Rushmans, the company that has been responsible for accreditations for the last two ICC Cricket World Cup tournaments and Trophy Championships, would not accept blame for Thursday's pandemonium because the accreditation centre which was supplied by the LOC was handed over to the company three weeks late.

Experiencing problems

He said the company has been experiencing a number of problems since it began operating in Jamaica.

"There have been numerous power-supply problems causing constant interruptions to their work and corruption of their IT systems," he said.

He said the inaccurate instructions given by the LOC was the sole cause of the chaos on Thursday.

"They were supposed to have arrived in batches of 30 to undertake collection and it was wrong to attribute blame to Rushmans for the fact that they did not do so," he said.

He continued:

"Rushman is one of the world's leading accreditation companies and delivered successful tournament accreditation services for two previous ICC Cricket World Cups and Champions Trophies and indeed over 500 events in 30 countries," he said.