PCB refutes media claims on overspending

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) on Monday refuted an article published in the Daily Express, which was translated and reproduced by sister organization The Tribune under the headline PCB’s excessive spending continues despite Covid-19 in which the newspaper leveled serious and libelous financial allegations against the board.

The PCB said that the facts are: The Board of Governors (BoG), in its 57th meeting held in Peshawar on February 4, 2020, approved the PCB financial statements for the period 2018-2019, which highlighted a significant rise in revenue of about Rs6 billion. The statements are available on the corporate site.

It further added that the BoG, in its 58th meeting held via a virtual session on June 26, 2020, approved a Rs7.76billion operating expenditure budget for the 2020-21 fiscal year, which was a 10 per cent reduction from the 2019-20 budget as part of the PCB’s austerity, robust financial management and belt-tightening exercise.

The PCB’s financial outlook is stronger than ever and the reserves continue to increase due to the board’s approach and strategy around austerity and tight financial controls. Despite the pandemic challenges, the PCB’s forecasted cash flow reserve for the 2020-21 fiscal year will be higher than the current balance.

Financial audits for 2019-20 are in process and, as per the PCB’s transparency policy, will be uploaded on the corporate website

On 6 June 2020, the PCB had announced its annual incremental increase policy, which is available on the website and some of the extracts are:

After past culture of all PCB staff receiving substantial annual incremental increases, we have made a decision to tighten our expenditure over the next 12 months and only award increases to staffers who earn Rs100,000 a month or less.

This will commence from the new fiscal year, which starts on 1 July.