$1.4B FOR SPORTS - (01/04/11)

Source: www.newsday.co.tt


By Andre Bagoo


ON WHAT he described as a “red letter day” for the country, Sports Minister Anil Roberts yesterday unveiled the State’s two-year plan for the construction of close to $1.4 billion worth of sporting facilities including a velodrome (for cycling), a tennis centre, a swimming centre in honour of Olympian George Bovell III and community sports facilities across the country.

“We are going to take sport to the people,” Roberts said at a post-Cabinet briefing at the Diplomatic Centre, St Ann’s, as he made the announcement on the day when Bovell III won gold in the 50m freestyle at an international swimming meet in Madrid, Spain. (See Page 38A)

With the ugly spectre of Udecott’s unfinished $1.1 billion sporting complex at Tarouba still looming, Roberts announced that the State would push forward with plans to construct an aquatic centre in Bovell III’s honour at the site that had been earmarked at Mucurapo since Bovell III won bronze at the Athens Olympics in Greece 2004.

Also scheduled are: a velodrome at Mount Hope and a national tennis centre. These three projects have a total estimated cost of $735 million. Also planned are $510 million worth in community sport centres and $131 million in recreation grounds scattered across Trinidad and Tobago. Roberts said the facilities would be built in both PP and PNM constituencies.

“Today is a red letter day in the history of sport in Trinidad and Tobago. The Cabinet has approved the expenditure of $1.37 billion in sport over the next two years,” Roberts said. “These facilities have been promised since the days of the father of the nation Dr Eric Williams.” He said that in 1966, Dr Williams promised to build a 50 metre pool, “for the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago.”

“Subsequently, many ministers and parliamentary secretaries came went and promised and nothing was done. George Bovell III won a bronze medal and made history as the first person in the English-speaking Caribbean to win a medal and was promised a 50 metre pool,” Roberts said. But nothing came of this promise.

“The aquatics centre will be built and will be housed near to the Hasely Crawford Stadium at Mucurapo,” the Sports Minister said. Roberts, a one-time coach who worked with Bovell III, also announced plans to team up with the Ministry of Education to have swimming made a compulsory subject at primary school.

“All of us live on two island states and there are too many instances of drowning every year while we lime at the river or on the beach,” he said. “Every child must be water competent; water safe.”

In relation to planned cycling facilities, Roberts listed cycling greats such as Gene Samuel and noted that “countless cyclists toiled” over the decades but under poor conditions. He said Samuel missed out on a bronze medal because he rode on a “borrowed bike”.

“Now our cyclists will have a world-class facility in which to prepare, to train, to race and to encourage young people to get involved in cycling,” he said. He said the planned velodrome will be located near to the Arthur Lok Jack School of Business at Mount Hope and near to the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex.

Of the tennis complex Roberts noted that it will feature both outdoor and indoor courts.

“In Trinidad and Tobago you have nine months of rains so tennis player training is drastically affected because all of our facilities are outdoor,” Roberts argued. He said the proposed National Tennis Centre will have six indoor courts, six outdoor courts and one centre court with a seating capacity of 3,000.

“These facilities are not only to serve our locals but also a thrust to diversify the economy with sport tourism,” the minister said. He said estimates of revenues from visitors from the United States showed that the project could yield about $8.1 million per year and fund the running of the facility.

Roberts said the construction of community centres and recreation grounds could create 3,500 jobs over two years and result in 800 jobs being created on a permanent basis via maintenance jobs.

The minister argued that the billion-dollar expenditures should not be compared with salary allocations for public servant salaries. “We love our public servants,” he said. “But we cannot mix recurrent (annual repayments) expenditure with capital (one-off) expenditure.” He argued that capital expenditure projects such as the new sport facilities and new highway projects will possibly boost economic productivity, increase jobs and investment and could push the country’s GDP up by ten percent.

Roberts could not say when the Brian Lara Stadium project at Tarouba, administrated by Udecott, would open. But he assured that the problems of that project — which was once called “scandalous” by the Report of the Uff Commission of Inquiry — will not be repeated as the Government has ensured that state agencies are not run by “yes men.” He noted that there are no longer executive chairmen with interlocking portfolios on State boards due to the Government’s policy in this regard.

The Brian Lara project was once budgeted at about $400 million but its cost now stands at $1.1 billion and counting. The project was supposed to encompass a cricket facility plus other sporting facilities but these have been scrapped, Roberts said. “The projects will be monitored for budgetary constraints to ensure that a disgrace like the Brian Lara Stadium will never happen again,” Roberts said.