New­ly ap­point­ed Min­is­ter of Sport and Youth Af­fairs, the Ho­n­ourable Phillip Watts, was re­ceived with a warm wel­come on his first of­fi­cial day of work at the Min­istry’s Head Of­fice in St Clair, Port of Spain on Mon­day.

The min­is­ter was wel­comed by the act­ing per­ma­nent sec­re­tary Nar­ine Char­ran and the deputy act­ing per­ma­nent sec­re­taries Sav­it­ri Balka­ran and Gabre-Je­su Mc­Tair.

The Min­istry’s Ex­ec­u­tives pre­sent­ed an up­date on pro­grammes of­fered to ath­letes and youth be­tween 10 and 35 years old. Fol­low­ing his meet­ing, Min­is­ter Watts said, “I am look­ing for­ward to work­ing with this team. Let’s work to­geth­er to get the job done and make this the best-per­form­ing min­istry.” On Sun­day, Min­is­ter Watts vis­it­ed the Marchin Recre­ation Ground in Char­lieville, Ch­agua­nas, where he met with play­ers from T&T Crick­et Board (TTCB) Pre­mier­ship Di­vi­sion I teams Bess Mo­tors Marchin Pa­tri­ots and Queen’s Park Crick­et Club.

Dur­ing his vis­it, Min­is­ter Watts an­nounced plans to launch a youth crick­et de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme for pri­ma­ry schools in his La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro con­stituen­cy, which he won last Mon­day dur­ing T&T’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion. Watts, who pre­vi­ous­ly served as the chair­man of the PNM’s con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive for La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro for 14 years be­fore join­ing the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), suc­ceed­ed Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis, the for­mer Min­is­ter of Sports and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, and has over 23 years of ex­pe­ri­ence in busi­ness and project man­age­ment.

Watts, who said he loves work­ing with youths, would be aim­ing to lever­age sport as a tool for na­tion­al pride and so­cial up­lift­ment.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Crick­et Board (TTCB) has con­grat­u­lat­ed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, SC, on her his­toric vic­to­ry in the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tions.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar led her Unit­ed Na­tion­als (UNC) to a re­sound­ing 26-13 tri­umph over the in­cum­bent Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) to re­turn as prime min­is­ter for the sec­ond time. In a con­grat­u­la­to­ry let­ter to the prime min­is­ter and Siparia Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, TTCB pres­i­dent Az­im Bas­sarath hailed Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s achieve­ment.

“Your tri­umph stands as a tes­ta­ment to your un­wa­ver­ing re­silience, stead­fast com­mit­ment, and ex­em­plary ded­i­ca­tion to na­tion­al ser­vice--- hall­marks of a tru­ly dis­tin­guished and his­toric ca­reer in pub­lic life,” the TTCB stat­ed.

The let­ter con­tin­ued: “As the na­tion­al gov­ern­ing body for crick­et, the TTCB proud­ly aligns with your vi­sion for the holis­tic de­vel­op­ment of the young peo­ple of our na­tion.”

“We re­main par­tic­u­lar­ly in­spired by the nu­mer­ous im­pact­ful ini­tia­tives im­ple­ment­ed un­der your lead­er­ship dur­ing the 2010-2015 Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion which pos­i­tive­ly shaped the lives and ca­reers of many ath­letes across the coun­try.” The TTCB has com­mit­ted to deep­en­ing the col­lab­o­ra­tion with the new UNC gov­ern­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly the Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs, to po­si­tion crick­et as a pow­er­ful and ef­fec­tive ve­hi­cle for youth en­gage­ment, char­ac­ter build­ing and na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment. The UNC al­so wel­comed new­ly ap­point­ed Min­is­ter of Sport and Youth Af­fairs Phillip Watts, the in­com­ing Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro.

“We are heart­ened and en­cour­aged by the con­sis­tent and mean­ing­ful work you con­tin­ue to do with the young peo­ple of your con­stituen­cy,” the TTCB stat­ed.

The na­tion­al sports or­gan­i­sa­tion said it looked for­ward to work­ing with Min­is­ter Watts to dri­ve na­tion­al youth de­vel­op­ment through crick­et, hav­ing es­tab­lished it­self as the lead­ing lo­cal sports ad­min­is­tra­tion. “Our record of top com­pli­ance rat­ings from the Sports Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go, as well as un­matched de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes, has helped es­tab­lish our na­tion­al crick­eters as some of the best in the re­gion,” the TTCB in­formed the min­is­ter.

The TTCB stat­ed it was ea­ger to con­tin­ue to work with the min­istry and reaf­firmed its sup­port in achiev­ing the shared vi­sion of em­pow­er­ing the youth and build­ing a vi­brant sport­ing cul­ture.

Mean­while, Daymi­an Stew­art, the T&T Vol­ley­ball Fed­er­a­tion Pres­i­dent, has ex­tend­ed con­grat­u­la­tions and best wish­es to new­ly elect­ed Prime Min­is­ter of T&T, the Hon­or­able Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar SC.

In his re­lease to the me­dia, Stew­art said, “On be­half of the T&T Vol­ley­ball Fed­er­a­tion (TTVF), I wish to ex­tend our heart­felt con­grat­u­la­tions on your re­cent vic­to­ry at the polls. This is a piv­otal mo­ment for our na­tion, and we com­mend your lead­er­ship and ded­i­ca­tion to guid­ing our coun­try for­ward.

As a com­mit­ted or­gan­i­sa­tion ded­i­cat­ed to the de­vel­op­ment of our youth and the di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion of our econ­o­my, we stand ready to col­lab­o­rate with your gov­ern­ment in these vi­tal pur­suits.

We be­lieve that your uni­fy­ing, bi­par­ti­san ap­proach—root­ed in mu­tu­al re­spect and gen­uine care—can pro­pel us to­ward a brighter fu­ture for all T&T cit­i­zens.”