Dix­ie Ann Dick­son

One of the coun­try's lead­ing banks has pledged close to $400,00 to the de­vel­op­ment of sport in T&T.

An­tho­ny Alexan­der, cor­po­rate man­ag­er of First Cit­i­zens, said yes­ter­day that the com­pa­ny recog­nised the im­por­tance of con­tribut­ing to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment. He made the dis­clo­sure short­ly be­fore hand­ing over a $350,000 cheque to Clement Sankat, pro-vice chan­cel­lor and prin­ci­pal of Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), at the launch of UWI SPEC In­ter­na­tion­al Half Marathon. The launch was held at the UWI's St Au­gus­tine cam­pus, yes­ter­day.

The marathon is sched­uled to take place on No­vem­ber 1, and will see more than 1,000 lo­cal, re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al ath­letes com­pet­ing for more than $135,000 in prizes. Alexan­der said de­spite the cur­rent glob­al fi­nan­cial down­turn, First Cit­i­zens recog­nised that cor­po­rate so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty should re­main a pri­or­i­ty. How­ev­er, in a sub­se­quent in­ter­view, head of Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions of First Cit­i­zen Bank, Dex­ter Charles, gave the as­sur­ance that it would not re­duce its con­tri­bu­tions in that area.

Alexan­der fur­ther not­ed that as First Cit­i­zens was the on­ly lo­cal bank in T&T, the com­pa­ny had a moral re­spon­si­b­li­ty to as­sist in the coun­try's na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment. He said the com­pa­ny viewed sport as a ma­jor change agent and key in­gre­di­ent to the over­all de­vel­op­ment of T&T, and this was the pri­ma­ry mo­ti­va­tion to lend sup­port. First Cit­i­zens was the pre­sent­ing spon­sors for the third con­sec­u­tive year.

?Sankat speaks

?Clement Sankat ap­pealed to oth­er pri­vate and pub­lic or­gan­i­sa­tions to in­vest more in the area of sports. He said it was "ab­solute­ly es­sen­tial" for both pri­vate and pub­lic sec­tors to play a greater role in en­hanc­ing the coun­try's sport­ing fa­cil­i­ties. "The Caribbean con­tin­ues to re­ceive more re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion for its ex­cel­lent per­for­mance in sports," he said. "UWI would like to pro­vide ad­di­tion­al first-class fa­cil­i­ties such as an ath­let­ic track and ar­ti­fi­cial foot­ball field for stu­dents and ath­letes to fur­ther de­vel­op their tal­ent." Sankar ad­mit­ted while this was a work in progress, es­pe­cial­ly in light of the fi­nan­cial cli­mate, it was an is­sue which should not be over­looked.

?About the marathon

?The marathon will cater to spe­cif­ic cat­e­gories, in­clud­ing UWI stu­dents and staff, as well as hand­i­capped com­peti­tors. It be­gins at 6 am at UWI SPEC along the PBR up to D'Abadie and ends at UWI Spec. Sankat said the marathon was an im­por­tant cat­a­lyst for strength­en­ing re­la­tions and pro­mot­ing health­ly lifestyles through ath­let­ics and sport.