The AAG lacks savoir-faire

Feb 22, 2015 Sports

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By Edison Jefford
The Athletics Association of Guyana (AAG) continues to display its lack of savoir-faire when it basically

agreed to Government’s imposition of a half-hour slot on a programme to facilitate the opening of the Synthetic Track and Field Facility at Leonora.
The Public Relations Officer of the AAG sent out a press release last Wednesday informing that the facility, which started construction in 2010, will be opened on March 27, and athletics will be one of the features of the programme, albeit for half an hour.
The release further stated that the top athletes from the association’s CARIFTA Games trials, set for March 7-8, will most likely feature at the proposed opening of the facility, which exposes the anomalies and ineptness inherent in this most recent development.
The AAG is the representative organ of all athletes and clubs in Guyana and is an affiliate to the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF). With that said, the AAG cannot stand as an arbitrary mouth-piece of the existing Government of Guyana.
In this matter, the association showed it is impoverished when it comes to tact, when it willingly took on the responsibility of informing the media and by extension, the nation of an opening date for the Synthetic Facility after merely visiting the site.
Such a correspondence should have emanated from the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport that has an established mechanism in place to inform the media. The AAG played right into the hands of the Government

when it ‘jumped the gun’ with the disclosure.
If for some reason, and there has been many in the past, the facility does not meet the announced March 27 opening date, Government is in a position to inform that it was the AAG that published the date as opposed to an official release from the ministry.
As of the publication of this article, there has been no official release from the ministry, which is directly responsible for the construction of the facility, on its opening. Maybe the company of the Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport, Dr. Frank Anthony and Director of Sport, Neil Kumar had overwhelmed AAG President, Aubrey Hutson on Wednesday to the point that Hutson was blithe in this matter and forgot that he has an administrative role.
That was not an excuse for Hutson. It was an indication of his tip-toeing on serious issues, which has clouded the construction of the facility from its inception. With that first blunder aside, there was the acceptance of half-hour on the programme to open the facility.
This is where Hutson’s happy-go-lucky stance with the Government is further under scrutiny and his role as the Head of a national association that is expected to act as a vanguard for athletes and clubs in Guyana becomes further compromised and confused.
How can the AAG accept half hour on a programme to open an athletics venue? Enthusiasts and all stakeholders

of athletics and athletes in Guyana should see this as a complete betrayal of their confidence in this administration to properly govern the sport.
New track and field venues are opened with track and field meets all over the world, event those newly commissioned to hosts Olympic and other Games. But in Guyana, the athletics association is accepting half hour on a programme to open its first athletics venue.
Did the association consider what will be the other contents of the opening ceremony? This is an election year, which makes that question easy to answer. From becoming the mouth-organ of the Government on this subject, to accepting a minimal role on the opening programme of Guyana’s first synthetic venue, the AAG is sacrificing its identity.
The association is being subtlety cajoled into a political campaign, and outfoxed for due political expediency because windows that show that it lacks savoir-faire have been left open. Where was the association when this very Government that was happy to invite it for a walk-about was busy trying to prevent Olympian Winston George from training on the completed track?
Had it not been for the intervention of Guyana Olympic Association (GOA) President, K. Juman Yassin, George’s stint on the track would have been short-lived. Where was the voice and militancy of the AAG when Kumar publicly stated that he will have to employ a coach, who will decide on athletes’ usage of the facility?
Again, where was the steady clarion from the association to mount pressure on Government that clearly took too long to complete the facility, which is still not finished? There has not been a single effort from the association to mobilise against Government’s apathy toward athletics, yet Hutson gleefully goes on parade at the track that he cannot access at will.
It reminds of the return of the CARIFTA Games team last year when the AAG rushed to present the athletes for a photo opportunity with Anthony at his ministry. Anthony did not use his office to secure tax waivers for the team on departure much-less funding. So why give the ministry the courtesy of publicity if it did not contribute to the team’s success? This goes back to the political posturing of the association underlined in this exposé.
With the CARIFTA Games scheduled for early April, and with the track already completed with just the adjoining amenities to be finished, the athletics association should have lobbied for their CARIFTA trials to be the opening feature of the track. If that was impossible because of time the association should have requested to host their trials as per their scheduled, nevertheless. But this fundamental role of the association seems lost in a political posture.
Just for the record, and in conclusion, maybe the association needs reminding that the track they will be celebrating costs tax payers US$5 million as of 2013, the time of the last update on costs, which amounts to millions more than initially budgeted. If the number of delays and setbacks the venue encountered did not budge the AAG, it is unlikely that much else will, especially given the uncanny posturing of its President.

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