Naz Ya­coob

The Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs re­ceived an al­lo­ca­tion of $3.88 bil­lion for the 2009/2010 fis­cal year in the bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion made yes­ter­day by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Karen Nunez-Tesheira.This is $27 mil­lion less from the re­vised al­lo­ca­tion for 2008/2009 ac­cord­ing to the bud­get doc­u­ment Draft Es­ti­mates of Re­cur­rent Ex­pen­di­ture for 2009/2010.

In 2008/2009, Gov­ern­ment al­lo­cat­ed the Sport Min­istry $4.15 bil­lion.

She said gov­ern­ment's ini­tia­tives in Sport and Youth de­vel­op­ment would con­tin­ue to be guid­ed by the Na­tion­al Sport Pol­i­cy, which emerged out of the 2020 Strate­gic Plan. Nunez-Tesheira said that in 2009/2010, the Gov­ern­ment would con­tin­ue to in­crease op­por­tu­ni­ties for recre­ation and for at­tain­ing ex­cel­lence in sport by ex­pand­ing and up­grad­ing the sport plan. She said Gov­ern­ment's pol­i­cy for the youth is to proac­tive­ly fo­cus on pre­ven­ta­tive mea­sures, prompt­ing pos­i­tive val­ues that are eas­i­ly fos­tered through sport. Nunez-Tesheira said this is in keep­ing with Vi­sion 2020 de­vel­op­ment plan to nur­ture a car­ing so­ci­ety. She added that it is this con­text that the Na­tion­al Youth Pol­i­cy is be­ing im­ple­ment­ed.

"Our cit­i­zens and sports pro­fes­sion­als de­serve the va­ri­ety and qual­i­ty of sport­ing in­fra­struc­ture that fa­cil­i­tates the de­vel­op­ment of minds and bod­ies. We have raised the bar, by pro­mot­ing high­er goals, by de­mand­ing high­er stan­dards of trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty in sports ad­min­is­tra­tion by max­imis­ing the use of ex­ist­ing fa­cil­i­ties and pro­grammes and by up­grad­ing our sport in­fra­struc­ture for our na­tion's ath­letes, youth and gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion," Nunez-Tesheira said. She said that Gov­ern­ment will con­tin­ue to in­vest in the con­struc­tion and up­grade of sport and youth fa­cil­i­ties to en­cour­age in­door court games and oth­er sport struc­tures for the dis­ci­plines of ten­nis, cy­cling and swim­ming.

"In fis­cal 2010, we will com­mence work on a Na­tion­al Aquat­ic Cen­tre; up­grade the Diego Mar­tin, Siparia, San­gre Grande, La Hor­quet­ta and Cou­va Swim­ming Pools and the Na­tion­al Ten­nis Cen­tre and com­mence con­struc­tion of the Ma­yaro Youth Fa­cil­i­ty.

"We will es­tab­lish a Na­tion­al Cy­cling Cen­tre and Velo­drome, up­grade Cor­po­ra­tion Grounds, the Dwight Yorke Sta­di­um and oth­er mul­ti-pur­pose sta­dia. We will al­so up­grade and re­ha­bil­i­tate the for­mer Ca­roni Sport Fa­cil­i­ties at Sevil­la Club and Gilbert Park.

"We have es­tab­lished a path­way to take our promis­ing ath­letes from the pri­ma­ry to the elite lev­el and will in­vest in im­prov­ing the qual­i­ty of our coach­es as we pre­pare for re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tions. We will al­so con­tin­ue the Elite Ath­letes As­sis­tance Pro­gramme to al­low our high per­for­mance ath­letes with in­ter­na­tion­al rank­ing to ben­e­fit from fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance, while they fo­cus on their train­ing for com­pe­ti­tion," Nunez-Tesheira stat­ed.

She said that in 2010, the Gov­ern­ment will fur­ther the To­tal Par­tic­i­pa­tion in Sport man­date through Sport Camps and group-spe­cif­ic pro­grammes to en­gen­der healthy lifestyles through phys­i­cal recre­ation and sport for every mem­ber of the pop­u­la­tion.

Nunez-Tesheira said that ap­prox­i­mate­ly 400,000 per­sons in the Youth Co­hort, as well as ap­prox­i­mate­ly 800 reg­is­tered youth or­gan­i­sa­tions will ben­e­fit from an im­proved youth sport ad­min­is­tra­tion. She said that the es­tab­lish­ment of the Sport Com­mis­sion of T&T, to re­place the Sport Com­pa­ny of T&T, is clos­er to fi­nal­i­sa­tion with the prepa­ra­tion of a Draft Act, which will be tak­en to Par­lia­ment be­fore the end of the year.