The AAG is being untruthful

Jun 30, 2017 Sports

Dear Editor,
On the eve of its hosting of its National Senior Championships, The Athletics Association of Guyana (AAG) through its General Secretary has found it prudent to respond to an article I wrote entitled “Athletics association bankrupt after hosting South American Junior Championships”.
The response is a third perspective on the financial realities of the AAG. Mr. Editor, we have a third official from the association giving us alternative facts from two others last week in a letter circulated in the media.
According to that letter, the association has “cash flow issues” and is not bankrupt and “The AAG must maintain funds in its coffers to participate in international competition”. This is giving the impression that the association is financially sound.
That view is different from the insights of the AAG President and Event Co-Chairman on separate occasions last week. Maybe the association’s financial fortunes have changed in a week, but let us quote from the public statements of the other two officials.
In an article that appeared in the Guyana Chronicle on Wednesday June 21, 2017, AAG President, Aubrey Hutson is quoted thus:
“We don’t have money… we don’t even have money to clear our bills for the last (South American Junior) Championships, so I wasn’t going to incur an additional debt and financial burden on the future of athletics in Guyana”.
Hutson was speaking about the association’s inability to send athletes to the South American Senior Championships in Paraguay because of an absence of funds. Three athletes eventually paid their own expenses to compete at the meet.
Mr. Editor, any basic Accountant would proffer that if there is a situation debts cannot be repaid because of insufficient funds, it is a state of bankruptcy. Suffice it to say that the indebted and insolvent financial position of the association that Hutson described last week was a description of bankruptcy.
Following that pronouncement, Co-Chairman of the National Senior Championships and an AAG Official, James Cole gave another view at the launch of that event on Thursday, June 22, 2017.
“Now we have officially launched our National Senior Championships, we are asking the business community to come on board and give us their support because as it stands right now, our budget is $5.5 million and we are starting at $0, so we are asking all possible, small or large, to come on board with us…” Cole said.
Now again, if there is a situation where there is a budget of $5.5 million and there is zero dollars to begin with, what do you call that situation, Mr. Editor? Isn’t that another classic description of bankruptcy?
Maybe the association and its officials are trying to manipulate the English Language, and in so doing, hoodwink the nation, but linguistics is a competency that would not allow for the setting up of such smokescreen as in to go on to describe all that it has achieved, which was irrelevant to the issues I addressed in my analysis.
But do not take it from me and what I know from my investigations. Here there are two senior officials from the athletics association, including the President, describing the bankrupt state of the association. Now we are hearing a different position from the General Secretary, Mayfield Taylor-Trim.
With three varying positions on the state of the association’s accounts from three senior officials, the truth is obscured. What should pundits, enthusiasts, stakeholders, readers and even journalists believe when there are three people giving three different views on the same issue?
If indeed the association has money in its coffers as the General Secretary seems to be implying that will be a welcomed development for service providers and all the people who are still owed from the South American Junior Championships.
Edison Jefford

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