JCA boss says new election date remains undecided

Jamaica Cricket Association (JCA) President Dr Donovan Bennett says a new election date will be decided when the board has ratified proposed changes to its constitution.

The JCA annual general meeting and elections were set to be held today, but had to be postponed following legal advice from constitutional expert Dr Lloyd Barnett.

“We referred the matter [proposed changes] to Dr Lloyd Barnett who [said] the way it was done was unconstitutional,” the JCA boss told the Jamaica Observer.

“Changes to the constitution were made that did not satisfy the time in which they should have come in before the [annual general] meeting.”

While not giving a date for the election, Bennett noted that there is a window stretching to the end of the year.

“The election is not constitutionally due until December… but first of all we are going to have a [special] meeting to ratify all the changes that the members want and then after that we call the voting AGM,” he explained.

The JCA president added that the board has “to do what needs to be done to satisfy all the regulations that govern changes.”

Bennett, who had defeated the incumbent Wilford ‘Billy’ Heaven for the JCA top job in April 2024, is to return to the post unopposed.

However, there is intrigue surrounding the first vice-president job as incumbent Fritz Harris, the Clarendon Cricket Association president, is to be challenged by Nehemiah Perry, former West Indies off spinner and current head of Kingston Cricket Club.

Also on the executive, the incumbent secretary Laurence Garriques is to be challenged by Anthony Davis; Randy Nelson and Keith Walford are to vie for the assistant secretary position; incumbent Kerry Scott and challenger Hopeton Morrison are to contest the job as treasurer; and Michael Atterbury and Ian Spencer are to square off for the post of assistant treasurer. Peter Douglas is unopposed for the second vice-president role.