ICC clears Zimbabwe Cricket of financial impropriety

ICC clears Zimbabwe Cricket of financial impropriety

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THE International Cricket Council (ICC) has cleared Zimbabwe Cricket of any wrongdoing and concluded that the organisation’s books were in order, except for minor irregularities.

Ozias Bvute, the union’s managing director, who did not travel for the ICC Board meeting in Dubai and the union’s senior manager for communications and media, Lovemore Banda, both welcomed the decision.

Bvute said: “We have always maintained that the accounts were done according to international standards and what the ICC has simply done is to prove that. The few irregularities that have been pointed out will be rectified as soon as possible.”

Banda said the decision by the ICC Board not to pursue any action against the ZC “puts to rest all that has been said about the union’s finances”.

ZC chairman Peter Chingoka attended the meeting and will be a relieved man as the decision forms part of the basis for Zimbabwe’s return to Test cricket, and a restoration of its voting rights.

The audit report, conducted by accounting group KPMG, is understood to have found that no money had gone missing but some paperwork had been missing.

KPMG "found no evidence of criminality and that no individuals had gained financially" from the organisation’s funds.

The report added: “ZC reported to the ICC Board that it had taken substantial remedial action to correct these irregularities and would continue to do so.”

This decision came as a shock as earlier reports by the ICC executive board had suggested that there was “hard evidence” that financial details had been falsified within ZC's accounts.

KPMG said that they had found alarming but unsurprising irregularities in ZC's finances, including millions of dollars in ICC dividends that remained unaccounted for.

"The audit is painting a very bad picture," an ICC signatory said at the time.

Chingoka was only granted a limited-entry visa to the UK for last year's board meeting and was subsequently denied entry in October. Chingoka and Bvute will not face charges under the ICC's code of ethics, as earlier indicated by the ICC.

According to reports, Malcolm Speed, the ICC's chief executive, declined to attend the media conference, an indication, of his unease at his earlier presumptuous judgment of Zimbabwe.

Last year Speed said in a confidential but leaked memo that the ICC had been "misled" about some ZC transactions, concluding: "It is clear that the accounts of ZC have been deliberately falsified to mask various illegal transactions from the auditors and the government of Zimbabwe."
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