New Min­is­ter of Sports and Youth Af­fairs Phillip Watts has giv­en the as­sur­ance he will move swift­ly to deal with the ap­point­ment of the T&T Box­ing Board of Con­trol, which re­signed fol­low­ing the loss of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) at the re­cent gen­er­al elec­tions.

All five mem­bers of the box­ing board, in­clud­ing chair­man Bar­ry Ish­mael, Dr Rochelle Mo­hammed, Ter­ry Young, Christo­pher Brath­waite and Kwanieze John, ten­dered their res­ig­na­tions with im­me­di­ate ef­fect last week, there­by paralysing the sport, as no box­ing can take place in T&T with­out board ap­proval.

Pres­i­dent of the T&T Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion, Ce­cil Forde, who has the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to deal with am­a­teur box­ing, called on Watts in a let­ter to ap­point a box­ing board soon to avoid the dis­rup­tion of their de­vel­op­ment box­ing pro­gramme.

High­light­ing at least five box­ing as­sign­ments which face be­ing stopped, Forde, via a let­ter, sent his con­grat­u­la­tions and well wish­es to Watts on his el­e­va­tion to the po­si­tion of Min­is­ter of Sports, but said his as­sis­tance is cru­cial for the con­tin­ued de­vel­op­ment of the sport.

In his let­ter, Forde said, "Our As­so­ci­a­tion ac­knowl­edges and ex­plains the ur­gency of this cor­re­spon­dence with you, hav­ing been re­cent­ly sworn in as the Ho­n­ourable Min­is­ter of Sports and Youth Af­fairs in the gov­ern­ment's new Cab­i­net. On be­half of the as­so­ci­a­tion, this mat­ter is of great im­por­tance not on­ly to the Com­mu­ni­ties but es­pe­cial­ly to the youth of this na­tion.

"In ex­plain­ing, we in­form you that the sport of box­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go is gov­erned by an Act of Par­lia­ment, 'The Box­ing Con­trol Act'. The Act states 'An Act to Reg­u­late the Host­ing of Box­ing Con­tests'. 2 (1) 'For the pur­pose of this Act there shall be es­tab­lished a Trinidad Box­ing Board of Con­trol (in this Act re­ferred to as 'The Board') which shall con­sist of a Chair­man and not less than four oth­er mem­bers to be ap­point­ed from time to time by a Min­is­ter'.

"The Act goes on to stip­u­late that no Box­ing Con­test could take place with­out a per­mit signed by the Chair­man.

"Present­ly, the host­ing of all box­ing con­tests/events can­not be held, as the mem­bers of the present board have all re­signed. The host­ing of reg­u­lar box­ing con­tests is one of the ma­jor ac­tiv­i­ties in the de­vel­op­ment of our young box­ers. Dur­ing re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al tour­na­ments, Games and Cham­pi­onships, etc, our box­ers have to com­pete with op­po­nents of the same age and weight cat­e­gories who have one hun­dred plus (100+) bouts, whilst they have on­ly 20 or 30 fights."

Min­is­ter Watts, con­tact­ed on Sat­ur­day for a com­ment, as­sured that there is noth­ing to be wor­ried or con­cerned about. He has, for the past week, been meet­ing with mem­bers of his min­istry, for­mer­ly the Min­istry of Sports and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment.

"We await the Board Com­mit­tee's ap­point­ment first. The Cab­i­net needs to ap­prove a board com­mit­tee first, and the board's com­mit­tee will fill that gap con­cern­ing the ap­point­ment of a box­ing board, and we will soon have a box­ing board in place," Min­is­ter Watts said.

He not­ed, "Rec­om­men­da­tions will be made and the board's com­mit­tee will screen the per­sons who were nom­i­nat­ed, be­cause there are cer­tain cri­te­ria for board po­si­tions, you just don't put peo­ple on boards just like that.

"There is a cri­te­ri­on, you need to meet cer­tain qual­i­fi­ca­tions and what­not, so we will fill the po­si­tions very soon, so I don't think there's any­thing to wor­ry about or to pan­ic about."

Per­mits were re­quest­ed for four fights to date, start­ing with a card on the sis­ter isle of To­ba­go to be host­ed by the Elite Box­ing Gym on May 17 at the Scar­bor­ough Port Hall car park, as well as a card on June 1 at the Jer­ry Junc­tion Sports Bar in Wa­ter­loo to be staged by the Undis­put­ed Box­ing Gym.

There is al­so to be a box­ing card on June 14 to be host­ed by the Mitch Ath­let­ics at the Cou­va Mul­ti­pur­pose Hall at Cam­den Road, and an­oth­er card on June 28 at the Pe­tit Val­ley Bas­ket­ball Court on Sime­on Road, to be put on by the Gold­en Fist Box­ing Gym.