Pakistan Cricket Board awarded PSL franchise rights to unqualified off-shore firms

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) had awarded the franchise rights of a couple of Pakistan Super League (PSL) franchises to unqualified firms registered in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) and the Free Zone Establishment (FZE). The audit officials unearthed that Karachi Kings and Islamabad United were owned by offshore companies registered in the UAE and British Virgin Islands respectively.

The documents state that according to the provision of the bid documents, bids were needed to be received at designated email address. But bid against firms, M/s JW International, ARY Digital and Qatar Lubricants were received in hard form only. Apart from that, it was mandatory for a competing firm to produce financial statements of the last couple of years.

Firms with no financial statements awarded franchise rights

The statements should have account for at least one year, being audited in order to qualify for the selection process. It implied that all such firms, who weren’t able to produce their audited financial statements, weren’t eligible for franchise rights. The rights of Islamabad United were awarded to M/s Leonine Global which was a British Virgin Island (BVI) based firm with no audited statement.

The auditor general of Pakistan (AGP) in its special audit of PSL 1 and PSL 2 revealed that “it was analysed with concern that undue favour had been extended to some firms and that the franchise contracts (ten years each) were awarded in a subjective manner.” The words were stated in the documents available with Pakistan Today.

As per details, M/s JW FZCO registered in the UAE was awarded the franchise agreement for Peshawar team. The trading license of the firm expired on February 26 , 2014. Besides, the firm didn’t produce its annual audited statements and rather submitted statements of another firm. M/s Haier, which didn’t have controlling shares. Haier wasn’t even a part of the bidding process.

It was also learned that Haier was undergoing severe losses of around Rs 224 million in 2013 and it showed a non-transparent procedure followed in awarding contracts to the three franchises. On the matter, the PCB management replied that the bid document provides that the bid committee has the power to alter the terms and conditions of the bid document and the bidding process.

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