Sean Nero

This coun­try's sports tourism am­bi­tions have been dealt a se­ri­ous blow due to the non-com­ple­tion of ma­jor sports fa­cil­i­ties cost­ing the trea­sury mil­lions in pro­ject­ed rev­enue says Sports Min­is­ter Dar­ryl Smith.

While for­eign states and in­ter­na­tion­al sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions were still en­quir­ing about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of hav­ing ac­cess to the Bri­an Lara Sta­di­um, Na­tion­al Cy­cling Velo­drome, the George Bovell Aquat­ic Cen­tre and Na­tion­al Ten­nis Cen­tre and even the Dwight Yorke Sta­di­um in To­ba­go, post Sep­tem­ber 7, for their pre-Rio, Brazil 2016 Olympic prepa­ra­tion, the min­is­ter lament­ed in a T&T Guardian in­ter­view, they all need­ed work.

The Dwight York Sta­di­um, which was by no means new, how­ev­er, was in need of re­me­di­al work.

Mil­lions in rev­enue es­ti­mat­ed by the for­mer Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment from for­eign coun­tries de­sirous of set­ting up camps on lo­cal soil, en route to the Rio 2016 Olympic in Brazil, had been lost as once in­ter­est­ed par­ties have redi­rect­ed their busi­ness else­where, lead­ing up to the Games.

"...in­her­it­ed prob­lem! That should have been thought out and planned be­fore. Again, (it's) on­ly a month plus since we have been there (in gov­ern­ment).

There is noth­ing that we could do. We are try­ing our best to en­sure that they are com­plet­ed, but more im­por­tant­ly, that the main­te­nance con­tracts, the ten­der­ing process, is put in place.

Again, that was poor man­age­ment from the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion. They know Olympics was com­ing up," he said. Smith added, "They should have speed­ed up things, but in­stead they pushed cer­tain things for elec­tions gim­mick: cut­ting of rib­bons in cer­tain places and so on, when they should have fo­cused and re­alised that who­ev­er was in gov­ern­ment, the peo­ple of T&T would have ben­e­fit­ted with re­gards to util­is­ing these are­nas. We talk about sport tourism.

A lot of coun­tries and sports or­gan­i­sa­tion have asked about them, but they are not com­plet­ed. This is where the fo­cus should have been."

With re­spect to the Bri­an Lara Sta­di­um in Tarou­ba, Smith said he planned to meet with Hous­ing Min­is­ter Mar­lene Mc Don­ald and Noel Gar­cia, chair­man of the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (Ude­cott) to ex­plore ways to cease the he­m­or­rhag­ing of tax-pay­ers funds and ul­ti­mate­ly save the project.

He said the Kei­th Row­ley-led ad­min­is­tra­tion had to en­sure that no more tax-pay­er funds were wast­ed and as a con­se­quence some­thing pos­i­tive had to hap­pen.

"At this point I can't com­ment be­cause I have nev­er seen it. It's un­der Ude­cott. The min­istry of sport has no draw­ings, no plans. So we have to have that meet­ing and we do a for­mal (site) vis­it.

We will let the pub­lic know what we plan to do with it. I am the most op­ti­mistic per­son that you'll meet and I'm re­al­ly hop­ing that every­thing was done with good in­ten­tions.

At the end of the day, I think we re­al­ly want­ed crick­et to be at played there at the high­est lev­el, so it may be that they (the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment) would have had some is­sue," said Smith.

He con­tin­ued, "Five years passed and noth­ing was done. Whether it was po­lit­i­cal or not, I don't know what were their plans. Just like a num­ber of oth­er projects through­out T&T: the Diego Mar­tin North­ern Grounds, Ma­haica Oval (Point Fortin), and a num­ber of oth­er projects, even Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA). Look at NA­PA? All of a sud­den it's shut down be­cause of no main­te­nance.

That's for an­oth­er place, an­oth­er de­bate. All I know is the Bri­an Lara Sta­di­um will be looked at and the best de­ci­sion will be made for the tax pay­ers of T&T."

What­ev­er the chal­lenges were as­so­ci­at­ed with those projects they were all in­her­it­ed, he said, and went on­to slam the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar-led ad­min­is­tra­tion over its tar­di­ness.

Any lay­man, said Smith, would have known when con­struct­ing struc­tures such as those men­tioned, main­te­nance con­tracts had to be put in­to ef­fect.

"That wasn't put in place. So right now those (fa­cil­i­ties) are al­most com­plet­ed: 86, 95, 98 per cent com­plet­ed and there is no main­te­nance con­tract.

There is no way we could have a hand­ing over process with­out a prop­er ten­der­ing process with re­gards to who is go­ing to main­tain it, be­cause by the time you get that hand­ing over, the clock start tick­ing.

Who is go­ing to be main­tain­ing it? Who is go­ing to be en­sur­ing that the track is okay, the air con­di­tion­ing is work­ing, the lights are work­ing and so on. So we now mov­ing fever­ish­ly try­ing to put a ten­der­ing process in place to take care of the na­tion­al cen­tres main­tained," said the min­is­ter.

He con­tin­ued, "We have the Olympics around the cor­ner.

We want to make sure that the Olympic prospects would be able to use the cy­cling track, the swim­ming pool and so on, but they have to be com­plet­ed. They haven't been hand­ed over as yet.

But be­ing proac­tive as I am and the min­istry is we are try­ing quick­ly to get the main­te­nance con­tracts so when that day comes, we could have it opened right away."