Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

Sport Min­is­ter Anil Roberts says the George Bovell III Aquat­ic Cen­tre that was pro­posed for Pow­der Mag­a­zine, Co­corite, was nev­er a gov­ern­ment project-it's his fam­i­ly's pri­vate ven­ture. He said promis­es were made by sev­er­al en­ti­ties over the years to com­plete it but they were nev­er ful­filled.

Now, as a min­is­ter, he has vowed that he will not use tax­pay­ers' mon­ey to ful­fil a per­son­al dream but in­stead will en­sure that projects un­der his min­istry are de­liv­ered to the peo­ple, name­ly the aquat­ic cen­tre that is planned for Cou­va, in prox­im­i­ty to the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um.

He said Shang­hai Con­struc­tion re­ceived the con­tract and con­struc­tion had be­gun on the $193,221,739.70 na­tion­al aquat­ic cen­tre which is ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed in 20 months and which will be named in ho­n­our of the Olympic medal­list. The for­mer na­tion­al swim­mer and trained swim coach said, "Af­ter 46 years of the ini­tial promise for an aquat­ic cen­tre, the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship will de­liv­er this for Trinidad and short­ly for To­ba­go but with prop­er ten­der­ing."

He said the de­sign of the aquat­ic cen­tre will be con­sis­tent with re­cent­ly built in­ter­na­tion­al aquat­ic cen­tres such as the Bei­jing Aquat­ic Cen­tre, which cost ap­prox­i­mate­ly $762 mil­lion for the 2008 Olympic Games. The Cou­va cen­tre is ex­pect­ed to of­fer T&T the ca­pac­i­ty to at­tract in­ter­na­tion­al aquat­ic events and to de­vel­op the lev­el of the na­tion­al wa­ter sports teams.

Roberts said, "To all the mis­chief mak­ers who would like to sug­gest that this Gov­ern­ment is re­mov­ing every­thing from Port-of-Spain be­cause Port-of-Spain is PNM and we're de­vel­op­ing the rest of the coun­try be­cause it is UNC...ab­solute rub­bish. "This Gov­ern­ment fol­lows the con­sti­tu­tion un­like the PNM, that on­ly de­vel­ops their ar­eas." He said Cou­va was set to be­come a sport­ing vil­lage. Roberts spoke to the Sun­day Guardian on No­vem­ber 22 at Sweet Bri­ar's Place, St Clair.

'My pool will be built with pri­vate funds'

Since be­com­ing a min­is­ter, Roberts has re­lin­quished his role as di­rec­tor of the Pi­ran­ha Aquat­ic Swim Club in which his fa­ther, broth­er and de­ceased moth­er were di­rec­tors. In 1985, his fam­i­ly formed the club and at that time, he said his broth­er, Shas­tri, was the top swim­mer in the Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean. Shas­tri sub­se­quent­ly won nine gold medals at the Carif­ta Games in 1986.

The Roberts fam­i­ly had been mem­bers of The Mar­lin Swim Club since 1977. His fa­ther was a guar­an­tor of a loan to build the pool lo­cat­ed at St An­tho­ny's. How­ev­er, when faced with sev­er­al changes and chal­lenges, the fam­i­ly formed its own club.

"At that time, the Pi­ran­ha Aquat­ic Swim Club was ap­proached by the then Port-of-Spain may­or Williams (fa­ther of Er­ic Williams, for­mer PNM min­is­ter) and my fa­ther ne­go­ti­at­ed and got five acres of land in Pow­der Mag­a­zine to put down a fa­cil­i­ty." He claimed a for­mer Port-of-Spain may­or told him that no aquat­ic cen­tre would be built in the area for "poor peo­ple" be­cause the land was too valu­able and should be used for high-rise apart­ments.

He said even though the land be­longed to the city cor­po­ra­tion, the club had a 25-year lease with a 15-year ex­ten­sion to build the cen­tre for young peo­ple. At every junc­ture there was re­sis­tance, Roberts said. He be­lieved the cen­tre was an ab­solute ne­ces­si­ty for the peo­ple in the area.

Roberts said, "We have been fight­ing for years and let me say it is a pri­vate pool and has noth­ing to do with the Gov­ern­ment. "And in fact, it has been my dream to build it but by com­ing in­to pol­i­tics and be­com­ing the Min­is­ter of Sport, I have en­sured that my dream will nev­er be ful­filled be­cause as min­is­ter I can­not, and the Gov­ern­ment can­not build any pool there (Co­corite) be­cause what will they say? That it is Roberts build­ing a pool for him­self, from him­self and so on.

"If the pool is built, it will be done with pri­vate funds."

No land left in west Trinidad...Cou­va to be­come sport­ing vil­lage

There's no land left in west Trinidad, said Roberts. Even at Mt Hope, cer­tain parcels of land were need­ed for con­struc­tion of the in­ter­change. Cou­va was cho­sen be­cause land was avail­able. Ap­prox­i­mate­ly ten acres of land is need­ed. There was land own­er­ship is­sues in cer­tain ar­eas in the west and not want­i­ng to get in­volved in any dis­putes, he said Cou­va was the choice.

The Bal­main Crick­et Cen­tre will be up­grad­ed, the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um is al­ready used for foot­ball and track and field and the aquat­ic cen­tre and cy­cling velo­drome will make the spot a sport­ing vil­lage on ap­prox­i­mate­ly ten acres of land. Roberts said, "In essence it will be­come a sport­ing vil­lage which will en­cour­age do­mes­tic in­vest­ment, en­tre­pre­neurs, ho­tels, guest hous­es, restau­rants, malls, shops..they will gen­er­ate ac­tiv­i­ty there."

He said a growth pole will be cre­at­ed through sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties so when the facil­ties are com­plet­ed, not on­ly will chil­dren ben­e­fit but eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty will en­ter the area. He said the Tourism De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny and the Busi­ness?De­vel­op­ment Unit of the Sport Com­pa­ny had al­ready start­ed mar­ket­ing the fa­cil­i­ty. He said in the win­ter months, it is hoped that the fa­cil­i­ty will be­come a hub for train­ing uni­ver­si­ty teams from the US, Cana­da and Eng­land.

The George Bovell III Na­tion­al Aquat­ic Cen­tre will com­prise:

•a 50m in­door swim­ming pool de­signed and equipped to host in­ter­na­tion­al swim­ming com­pe­ti­tions with seat­ing ca­pac­i­ty for 700 per­sons with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of an ad­di­tion­al 700

•a 50m in­door warm up pool with ca­pa­bil­i­ties to ad­just lanes to host 25m swim­ming com­pe­ti­tions

•an in­door div­ing pool with div­ing well 25m x 20m x 20m with the req­ui­site con­crete div­ing plat­forms at 3m, 5m and 10m, as well as two 1m div­ing spring boards and two 3m div­ing spring boards

•an out­door 25m pool be de­signed to host swim­ming com­pe­ti­tions, div­ing com­pe­ti­tions, syn­chro­nised swim­ming and wa­ter po­lo com­pe­ti­tions

•aqua gym, fit­ness and spa

•con­ces­sion fa­cil­i­ties and gen­er­al user fa­cil­i­ties

•ath­let­ic and op­er­a­tion fa­cil­i­ties

•sys­tem and equip­ment fa­cil­i­ties

•wa­ter park en­ter­tain­ment fa­cil­i­ty and

•med­ical area