Bri­an Lewis

Sport, car­ni­val and our Car­ni­val men­tal­i­ty com­bined to­geth­er, is a pow­er­ful force for good and may well be the key to T&T be­com­ing a great Olympic Sport na­tion and the ba­sis for a sus­tain­able sport in­dus­try.

No­body does car­ni­val like we do. It can't be ex­plained, you have to ex­pe­ri­ence the out­er body bliss that is T&T car­ni­val.

In­stead of cel­e­brat­ing our car­ni­val men­tal­i­ty, we cel­e­brate cor­rup­tion, skul­dug­gery, medi­oc­rity, im­pro­pri­ety, slip­shod per­for­mance, a poor work eth­ic, in­ep­ti­tude and in­com­pe­tence.

The in­her­ent cre­ativ­i­ty, in­ven­tive­ness, work eth­ic, in­tegri­ty, sin­cer­i­ty, de­ter­mi­na­tion and in­no­v­a­tive­ness in our car­ni­val DNA is our strength and com­par­a­tive ad­van­tage.

What al­lows the rank and file of our so­ci­ety to ex­press and vent their frus­tra­tions, anger, and de­spair bet­ter than our car­ni­val? We laugh at our­selves and get loose.

Car­ni­val, sport, art, cul­ture, and our mu­sic are who we are as a peo­ple and as a na­tion.

Yet we al­low self serv­ing trib­al in­stincts to stand in the way of our af­fir­ma­tion and em­brace of our Trin­bag­o­ni­an­ness.

The oth­er point I want to touch on to­day is good gov­er­nance.

The T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) as the au­thor­i­ty, voice and rep­re­sen­ta­tive body of Olympic and Com­mon­wealth sport has a du­ty, oblig­a­tion and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to stand up and cham­pi­on the cause of sport and good sport gov­er­nance with­out fear or favour re­gard­less of which po­lit­i­cal par­ty is in gov­ern­ment.

Last week I met with Min­is­ter of Sport, Sen­a­tor the Ho­n­ourable Brent San­cho and Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Sport, Richard Oliv­er. What struck me more than their words spo­ken in the hour long meet­ing was the sin­cer­i­ty of their pa­tri­ot­ic vibes and en­er­gy.

In the meet­ing, the TTOC made no out-of-the-or­di­nary fi­nan­cial de­mands. The talks fo­cused on sport re­lat­ed struc­tur­al, sys­temic and pol­i­cy is­sues. Most im­por­tant­ly good gov­er­nance.

There were no false airs. It was a re­spect­ful but frank ex­change of views and ideas.

The kind of ex­change true pa­tri­ots can have when the on­ly agen­da and mo­tive is what's in the best in­ter­est of sport and the young peo­ple and youth in­volved in sport.

I ex­pressed the view that no pub­lic funds should be hand­ed out to any na­tion­al sport or­gan­i­sa­tion, gov­ern­ing body or club fail­ing to meet ba­sic prin­ci­ples of good gov­er­nance. Sport or­gan­i­sa­tions and in­di­vid­u­als in re­ceipt of pub­lic funds need to re­mem­ber there is a free­dom of in­for­ma­tion act.

There must be prop­er ac­count­ing for funds re­ceived and no fur­ther fund­ing giv­en for fail­ure to prop­er­ly ac­count for funds re­ceived. I al­so shared with the new Min­is­ter the TTOC's in­ten­tion to es­tab­lish a good gov­er­nance code for TTOC af­fil­i­at­ed sport or­gan­i­sa­tions.

I left the Min­istry of Sport en­cour­aged that there is:

(1) a shared vi­sion, com­mit­ment and ded­i­ca­tion to en­sure that sport in T&T is held to the high­est stan­dard of good gov­er­nance pos­si­ble

(2) that the best in­ter­est of the ath­letes is the pri­or­i­ty

(3) that the Min­istry of Sport will be a good gov­er­nance role mod­el for the sport fra­ter­ni­ty in T&T.

(4) Min­is­ter San­cho sup­ports 10 or more Olympic Gold medal by the year 2024 (#10golds24) and the con­cept of the TTOC #10golds24 Ath­lete Wel­fare and Prepa­ra­tion Fund.

Bri­an Lewis is the pres­i­dent of the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC). The views ex­pressed aren't nec­es­sar­i­ly those of the TTOC.

Ed­i­tor's Note: Sup­port #10golds24 Ath­lete Wel­fare and Prepa­ra­tion Fund. Do­na­tion: Sco­tia Bank Ac­count #171188