Pakistan Cricket Board is in danger of losing five million rupees and a prized plot of estimated value of four billion rupees if it does not start work by this month on construction of a new stadium in Islamabad to host international matches.
The board had signed an agreement with the Capital Development Authority in January last year under which the PCB would construct a new stadium in Islamabad for which the development authority leased out 40 acres of prime land.
Under the agreement the board deposited a bank guarantee of five million rupees and agreed to start construction of the new stadium by this month.
"The previous board set up headed by Nasim Ashraf even had the concept design and other plans of the new stadium approved by the CDA in August last year and started the process of inviting tenders, but since new chairman Ejaz Butt took over in October, the project has come to a standstill," one source said.
The source said if the board did not comply with the clauses of the agreement inked with the CDA by this month it would not only lose its five million rupees bank guarantee but the CDA also had the right to cancel the 33-year lease of the land allocated to them for construction of a new stadium. The source said under the agreement with CDA the board and the development authority were to run the stadium on profit sharing basis.
Butt recently stopped work on the construction and renovation of a new enclosure at the Gaddafi stadium in Lahore citing financial mismanagement by former PCB CEO Shafqat Naghmi and has ordered an inquiry into the matter by independent auditors.
International stadium in Islamabad in limbo
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