Sean Nero

Sports Min­is­ter Dar­ryl Smith wants a con­sti­tu­tion­al health check of all na­tion­al sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions (NSOs).

To achieve this, he has di­rect­ed the le­gal team to lead heads of de­part­ments at the min­istry in gath­er­ing and ex­am­in­ing the con­sti­tu­tions of all na­tion­al sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions, in an ef­fort to de­ter­mine if these bod­ies were op­er­at­ing in a free and fair man­ner.

His de­ci­sion to un­der­take this ex­er­cise was a di­rect re­sult of con­cerns raised by some mem­bers of the crick­et fra­ter­ni­ty about the ques­tion­able gov­er­nance prac­tices by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Crick­et Board (TTCB) as al­lowed un­der the ex­ist­ing con­sti­tu­tion.

The is­sue led to pub­lic spats be­tween TTCB of­fi­cials and their de­trac­tors, who ac­cused of­fi­cials on the board of us­ing the del­e­gate sys­tem to place a stran­gle hold on clubs to re­tain of­fice and ul­ti­mate­ly pow­er. At yes­ter­day's spe­cial An­nu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing (AGM) held at the Na­tion­al Crick­et Cen­tre in Bal­main, Cou­va, op­po­nents of the board called for amend­ments to the con­sti­tu­tion in­clud­ing the in­tro­duc­tion of a one man one vote sys­tem. The T&T Guardian has learnt that mo­tions tabled to­wards amend­ing the con­sti­tu­tion were de­feat­ed.

In a di­rect ef­fort to bol­ster the man­age­ment of NSOs, Smith said he want­ed pub­lic of­fi­cers to ac­quire the con­sti­tu­tions of all the gov­ern­ing bod­ies to un­earth trends and weak­ness­es. He want­ed to: "see what is the trend, what is the com­mon de­nom­i­na­tor. I al­so re­quest­ed best prac­tices through­out the world with re­gards to in­ter­na­tion­al gov­ern­ing bod­ies. How do they do their elec­tions and stuff."

Smith con­tin­ued, "The Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment, the par­ty that I am from and I am proud to be a part of, we re­cent­ly un­der Dr (Kei­th) Row­ley, the Prime Min­is­ter, made ma­jor changes to­wards the one man one vote (sys­tem). It is the more de­mo­c­ra­t­ic, trans­par­ent way. I as min­is­ter don't want to get heav­i­ly in­volved with the run­ning of the NGOs. But again, we are work­ing to­geth­er in a part­ner­ship, where we (are) fund­ing and giv­ing ad­vice and our job is to look over sport in T&T."

Asked if state en­ter­pris­es name­ly the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of T&T and the Na­tion­al Lot­ter­ies Con­trol Board should pro­vide fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance to the TTCB which was re­port­ed to have a struc­ture that was un­de­mo­c­ra­t­ic, the min­is­ter did not re­spond di­rect­ly.

"I think the Crick­et Board knows T&T is watch­ing. I am hap­py that the board is hav­ing this di­a­logue. It shows ma­tu­ri­ty. As a min­is­ter of sport, I think that the democ­ra­cy and the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process of the con­sti­tu­tion with re­gard to the elec­tions have to be ven­ti­lat­ed and looked at. In its cur­rent stage, there are some is­sues, but again, let them talk it out. I agree that changes need to be made in terms of it be­ing more trans­par­ent."

No of­fi­cial from the min­istry of sport at­tend­ed Sat­ur­day's AGM said Smith.

Not even in an ob­serv­er ca­pac­i­ty, he de­clared. In his view, the min­istry of sports had be­come too in­volved in the day-to-day op­er­a­tions of NSOs.

"The ac­counts de­part­ment (is) get­ting quotes for trips and cut­ting cheques! They (are) not do­ing the min­istry's work any­more. They (are) do­ing NSO work. The min­istry's staff need to fo­cus on the min­istry, so we could bet­ter un­der­stand and be more ef­fi­cient," he said.