Az­im Bas­sarath, pres­i­dent of the T&T Crick­et Board (TTCB), is prais­ing the gov­ern­ment for its al­lo­ca­tion to sports in Mon­day's read­ing of the Na­tion­al Bud­get in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

Yes­ter­day, the long-serv­ing crick­et ad­min­is­tra­tor said the al­lo­ca­tion giv­en is an in­di­ca­tion that the gov­ern­ment is ei­ther do­ing some­thing or it in­tends to do some­thing for sports in the com­ing year.

Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert de­liv­ered some $541,962,000 to­ward sports. This amount com­pris­es $459,762,000, which in­cludes re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture which was an in­crease of $123,692,947 from 2021, as well as an­oth­er $82,200,000 for De­vel­op­ment Pro­grammes.

From the amount set aside for de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes, $30 mil­lion was bud­get­ed to stage the Com­mon­wealth Youth Games.

Bas­sarath said, "It was ex­treme­ly heart­en­ing to see the al­lo­ca­tion for sports com­pared to what was giv­en for 2021. From what I have read, I have seen an in­crease for the Sports Com­pa­ny and al­so an in­crease gen­er­al­ly for the Min­istry of Sports and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment.

"That shows that the gov­ern­ment is do­ing some­thing or they in­tend to do some­thing for sports in 2023 and I think it is a step in the right di­rec­tion. I hope that crick­et plays an im­por­tant part in spend­ing some of the monies that have been al­lo­cat­ed for sports.

"We are in need of a lot of de­vel­op­ment work. In 2022 we had a lot of cor­po­rate spon­sors com­ing on board at the TTCB and do­ing a lot of work with our youth pro­grammes, so with this al­lo­ca­tion, if the busi­ness peo­ple don't come on board, we're go­ing to ap­proach the sports com­pa­ny, un­der which we fall, to get some of the al­lo­ca­tion to do some work in crick­et, but all in all, I think the bud­get did well for sports and I am very hap­py to see that be­cause of the suc­cess of our ath­letes at the Com­mon­wealth Games, that it played a very im­por­tant role in get­ting the gov­ern­ment to put more re­sources in­to sports."

Im­bert al­so boast­ed of the achieve­ments of the ath­letes at the Birm­ing­ham Com­mon­wealth Games in Eng­land which he said was due to the foun­da­tion laid by his gov­ern­ment many years ago, in hav­ing fa­cil­i­ties for the ath­letes to pre­pare.  

Through the gov­ern­ment, ath­letes were al­so giv­en fund­ing to pre­pare such as the Elite's Ath­letes As­sis­tance Pro­gramme.

The lo­cal crick­et boss al­so called for oth­er sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions to play equal­ly im­por­tant roles in the pro­mo­tion of the coun­try and the de­vel­op­ment of hu­man re­sources.

"I think that what the sports com­pa­ny is do­ing with the re­sources they have avail­able, they're try­ing to spread it to all sports, and that is why we would have seen the suc­cess of the ath­letes at the Com­mon­wealth Games, the cy­clists, the run­ners and so on.

"All in all, I feel all the NG­Bs are sup­posed to put out a de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme and see where the gov­ern­ment can as­sist.

"Crick­et has its part to play, we have al­ready sub­mit­ted a pro­pos­al for some grass­roots pro­grammes and we are go­ing to con­tin­ue push­ing more pro­grammes for­ward so that crick­et can get a fair share of the bud­get. But I would like to see more work done in oth­er ar­eas of sport.

"We are known for crick­et and foot­ball and most of the mon­ey will be spent there of course, but oth­er sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions sup­pose to step up the lad­der as well," Bas­sarath ex­plained.