We must bear some responsibility for the culture of incompetence that defines our leaders

Apr 11, 2023 Letters

Dear Editor,

President of the Athletics Association of Guyana (AAG) Aubrey Hudson had more than enough time and adequate resources to ensure that Guyana’s athletes going to this year’s CARIFTA games would get there effortlessly and without hiccups. Our athletes participating in the 50th edition of the CARIFTA games being hosted in the Bahamas were selected since February of this year.

Mr. Hudson received three million dollars from the PPP regime through its National Sports Commission and another three million from the Guyana Olympics Association to take care of the CARIFTA team. He must tell us if the funds were enough and why our athletes were without visas and stranded in another country trying to get to the Bahamas. Why is it only days before the start of the CARIFTA games that the President of the Guyana Athletics Association raise the issue with the athletes about whether they had visas to travel through Miami?

Why is it only last week that Mr. Hudson started to rush to book flights and did he not know that there are no direct flights from Guyana to the Bahamas? In my research of this sordid national embarrassment, I gathered that the AAG president operates as a ‘one man show’ and his only timely intervention into anything on the job is when he has to collect monies for the Association. Mr. Hudson’s leadership and conduct are unacceptable in this regard and he must be held accountable. An investigation must take place and if the president’s incompetence is responsible for the national and international embarrassment of Guyana’s athletes, he MUST be permanently relieved of his duties.

But the President of the Guyana Athletics Association seems not to be the only culpable party in this national disgrace in an oil rich country. Why no initial involvement of the Director of Sports, a PPP surrogate and the Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport? Why the Minister’s intervention only after the athletes were stranded? Is imbibing at the Marriott more important to the minister and his director of sports or were they more concerned about flying kites at the seawall in Georgetown?

The Guyanese people have endured, long enough, this retarded attitude coming from our high office holders. These leaders who seem to enjoy status, perks and privileges while paying scant disregard to professionalism in the execution of their national duties and void of any national pride in carrying out their functions that would ensure that we are no longer considered a banana republic must be confronted in the interest of preserving our national pride as a country and people.

The fact remains that we as Guyanese must bear some responsibility for the culture of incompetence that defines our leaders. We have allowed them for far too long to lord over us as if they are unaccountable to the people and are above reproach. We all are involved and we all are consumed in this national and international disgrace of staggering proportions and have reduced our athletes to embarrassing levels and we should not allow this debacle to be swept under the carpet.

Sincerely yours,

Norman Browne

Social and Political Activist

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Athletics Association of Guyana, Aubrey Hudson, CARIFTA, Culture, Norman Browne

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