Bri­an Lewis

To­day the Trinidad and To­ba­go Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) joins the rest of the glob­al Olympic Move­ment in cel­e­brat­ing Olympic day. The oc­ca­sion will be marked by a num­ber of ac­tiv­i­ties at Olympic House, 121 Aber­crom­by Street, Port-of-Spain.Var­i­ous schools will be host­ed at Olympic House. Mem­bers of the pub­lic are in­vit­ed to vis­it and join in the cel­e­bra­tions. Olympic day in T&T comes against the back­drop of trou­bling times for lo­cal sport.

Sport is at a crit­i­cal junc­ture and tran­si­tion, de­ci­sions can ei­ther harm or help the sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment of sport here.De­ci­sions that im­pact di­rect­ly on the na­tion­al sport or­gan­i­sa­tions and their ca­pac­i­ty to de­vel­op and run their sport re­quire trans­par­ent two way dis­cus­sions. Any per­cep­tion of a lack of trans­par­ent dis­cus­sions in and of it­self dam­age claims of a com­mit­ment to good gov­er­nance.

In some quar­ters, the ar­gu­ment is still po­tent that both the Min­istry of Sport and the Sport Com­pa­ny has not done enough to calm fears and al­lay con­cerns in re­spect of good gov­er­nance.Post Life Sport, the lo­cal sport com­mu­ni­ty re­mains trou­bled. In­ter­na­tion­al bod­ies are in­tol­er­ant of gov­ern­ment in­ter­fer­ence.

As the fo­cus was put on a few in­di­vid­u­als who may well have had less to do with the en­tire Life Sport de­ba­cle than the pub­lic has been led to be­lieve.For cer­tain in­di­vid­u­als it's busi­ness as usu­al and it serves a pur­pose to per­pet­u­al­ly sing the song that na­tion­al sport or­gan­i­sa­tions don't know what they are do­ing.Hence the re­frain that Min­istry of Sport and Sport Com­pa­ny is the so­lu­tion.

Take away the fear of a loss of fund­ing or ac­cess to fund­ing there is need for broad dis­cus­sions in re­spect of the sport sys­tem. Some­things aren't as above board as some pur­port.Why is the Sport Com­mis­sion and the es­tab­lish­ment of the Com­mis­sion on the back burn­er? What are the pol­i­cy per­spec­tives and im­per­a­tives in­form­ing the sidelin­ing of the sport Com­mis­sion? Who de­cid­ed and why?

Has there been open and trans­par­ent con­sul­ta­tion in re­spect of the way for­ward? What is the vi­sion and strate­gic im­per­a­tives dri­ving de­ci­sion mak­ing?As the Min­istry of Sport and Sport Com­pa­ny hold the mi­cro­scope on na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions and the Olympic Com­mit­tee, there is a say­ing fix your own house first.

There are a num­ber of ex­treme­ly ca­pa­ble and hon­est in­di­vid­u­als who make a huge­ly pos­i­tive dif­fer­ence in­side the Min­istry of Sport and Sport Com­pa­ny. They have a clear sense of what needs to be done and why re­spect­ing the na­tion­al sport or­gan­i­sa­tions is a crit­i­cal suc­cess fac­tor. They know the hid­den truth and need to be giv­en a fair hear­ing. Min­is­ters of Sport, gen­er­al­ly, aren't the in­tractable prob­lem. Short term think­ing overides the pol­i­cy cy­cle.

In coun­tries per­ceived as best prac­tice, the pub­lic sec­tor func­tions ef­fec­tive­ly and ef­fi­cient­ly on the ba­sis of pol­i­cy and a pol­i­cy cy­cle.What the sport com­mu­ni­ty wants to un­der­stand from the po­lit­i­cal par­ties con­test­ing the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tions is a loud and clear per­spec­tive on how will sport be in­te­grat­ed as a key pil­lar in their re­spec­tive eco­nom­ic and na­tion­al vi­sion and de­vel­op­ment plans.

Re­source al­lo­ca­tion of$57 mil­lion dol­lars to na­tion­al sport or­gan­i­sa­tions is not ad­e­quate and re­flec­tive of a sus­tain­able ap­proach to sport de­vel­op­ment.

Bri­an Lewis is the pres­i­dent of the T&TOlympic Com­mit­tee. The views ex­pressed are not nec­es­sar­i­ly those of the Olympic Com­mit­tee.Sup­port #10 Golds24 Ath­lete Wel­fare and Prepa­ra­tion Fund make your do­na­tions to any branch of Sco­tia­bank ac­count num­ber #171188. Share and sup­port the Olympic Dream.