Dr. Frank Anthony

– multi-purpose sports complexes axed

Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport Dr. Frank Anthony last Monday gave an insightful interview with Kaieteur Sport where he outlined some of the projects the Ministry has on stream and those that will not materialise this year.

He also touched on the subject of the re-introduction of sports in schools and the fact that the multi-purpose sports complexes that were earmarked for construction in Berbice and Essequibo had to be shelved due to the absence of funding.

First up, the Minister spoke about some of the projects that are priorities this year, citing the re-surfacing of the Non Pariel Tennis facility and the construction of a Squash Court as the frontrunners.

In reference to the much anticipated Olympic-size swimming pool that was originally slated for creation this year, the Minister said that because of an engineering oversight which did not factor in the use of piles on the first phase, the project had to be suspended for the lack of adequate funds.

“The monies for this project have been rolled over to this year and it is still our intention to get the job done, but as I’ve pronounced in previous engagements with the media, we have to re-apply to the Finance Ministry for an additional allocation of funds to purchase the materials.

We held a joint meeting with the Ministry of Education where we devised plans to get sports back on the school curriculum and I can tell you that from the top there was general agreement.

You must remember there was some activity in sports in schools, we have sponsored a number of competitions especially table tennis, basketball, chess etc, but what we are effectively aiming for is to get more disciplines played in schools since as you know it is now part of the CXC programme.

Additionally, because Regional Officers and Head Teachers have more autonomy now, it has become imperative that all parties work together to resolve issues. I’ve heard about teachers complaints of not being allowed time off to accompany students to sports activities, but we’ve agreed that wherever bottlenecks arise we have to find solutions.

We will continue to place a lot of emphasis in this direction especially in light of the overwhelming success that was seen last year when we collaborated with Banks DIH to stage the Inter-Block football competition.

It clearly showed that in the communities there is need for more initiatives and therefore we feel that the resources spent on such activities are bringing much needed value.

For instance, it brought together several communities at one time and that provided positive interaction, it also allowed fans, scouts to see talent that might not have been exposed otherwise and also created a positive avenue for the youths to utilise their energies.

We are hoping to expand in other disciplines such as basketball, volleyball, softball cricket and circle tennis.

Before, nobody seemed to be interested in taking the responsibility of coordinating people and getting programmes up and running.

Such initiatives help provide the social capital within communities.

This year we intend to do a survey to check all the facilities that we have those that fall directly under our purview and even those that don’t and this is to get a clearer understanding of what we have and where they are located so that more facilities can be effectively utilised.

We hope to build a database on such as well as register individuals such as coaches, administrators and organisers who can assist in areas that need their expertise.

It may look slothful to some, but because we are aiming to do a comprehensive plan which is part of the Sports Policy in the long run all will see the true benefits.

It is an area which we are going to look at, but again without clear programmes we just have to be careful. The Ministry added to the National Sports Commission about 3-4 sports organisers and we’ll continue to add more.

Right now we are not looking at that, we had scouted areas for their construction and done preliminary costing, but we haven’t been able to source the necessary funding.

That will cost an estimated US$10 million and at least for this year I’m not optimistic that we’ll get that kind of funding.

Realistically, that will not happen this year.

Looking ahead –

We would like to do many things for sports in the short, medium and long term in 2009. We would also like to complete the Sports Policy which has been very exhaustive in preparing and to get it laid in Parliament.

The problem is that we do not have the people with the capacity to do many of the things we would like to do, but the point is that we still have to move ahead.

In closing the Minister said that even though progress in sports appears to be moving at a slow rate it must be contextualized, meaning that over the past years many things to aid in the development of sports were neglected.

Many of the facilities were in a run down state and it is not a case of the Ministry having unlimited resources to do all at once so we have to prioritise.