… acknowledges sports being neglected in Guyana
PRESIDENT Bharrat Jagdeo said that Guyana is a far way from where it wants to be as it relates to sports and pledged his Government commitment in getting it to a much more acceptable state. The Head-of-State was delivering the feature address at the National Sports Awards, hosted by the National Sports Commission (NSC) at the  National Cultural Centre on Friday night.
Speaking to an audience that consisted of the awardees and other stakeholders in sports, President Jagdeo refused to give the usual “all is well with us” speech and raised the eyebrows of those gathered when he said Government is aware that Sports in Guyana has been placed on a back bench by his administration, making way for other ‘important’ projects.
“We had to travel a very difficult path, that’s why when people ask: so why not before? Why did you not do this before, did you not know the importance of sports five/ten years ago? I would answer yes! People always know the importance of sports but there is an economic imperative that will always affect sports, both at the personal level and at a nation’s level and if the economic situation doesn’t allow you to make the investments that are necessary to support the sportsmen and women then we would not be creating a supportive environment,” said Jagdeo.
He added that “for a very long time in this country we have acknowledged that it was so, it is now changing largely because our economic circumstances are changing, and so I’ve been saying this many times where ever I go that we had to use almost all of our income to service debts. We recognise sports is important”.
President Jagdeo said that Guyana’s economic situation changed recently but, “the first set of resources had to go to pay back loans and to keep other things going; we had to keep the schools going, the hospitals going, so, we didn’t recognise sports is important, but we went through a very difficult time economically, and until today we have not recovered, particularly at a school’s level and schools sports play a very important role because it nurtures a generation of young people who would move on to amateur and professional levels”.
According to the President, “We also can’t be unmindful of the situation many of our sportspeople face.
They may do extremely well at the national level, even in professional sport, but they don’t have a job. They don’t have enough income to support their families much less to support their career or training, but the state will not be able to fix everything and so our business community has to start seeing this as a big investment.
We are prepared to spend $50M on a show to bring two Jamaican singers here, I mean I don’t have a problem against them (Jamaican singers), I go to the shows too, but we’re unprepared to spend $1M to support a sportsperson or find a job for them that gives them $100 000 a month”.
Jagdeo called on the support of the private and public sector, sighting that sports cannot be developed and realise its full potential if there’s no vision and support.
“It was said that sports and its development should be tackled from the base and that it’s an increase role for the government in terms of spending more and being more broadminded and making more opportunities available but there are other elements of the system that need to be fixed”.
Defunct associations were not spared in the President’s remarks on Friday, as he declared, “I need to call a spade a spade.”
“I shouldn’t be singling out anyone, but we have the upcoming tour of Pakistan and the West Indies and we have our cricket board, they live in the court. How can you really develop cricket in Guyana when the people at the top are unsettled, they don’t have a direction and can’t be supportive of our players and half the time because we don’t have our acts together, our people are not lucky enough to make the team (WI). I’m not saying that we shouldn’t lobby if our guys are not good, they are as good as anyone else”.
However, Jagdeo warned that “the Government shouldn’t get involved in running people’s affair. We should be there to support and so on, but I hope that we can all work on this together to support sports, more amateur sports and we’ll (Government) will be doing this, allocating more money to the sector”.
Meanwhile, during his remarks, Minister of Sport Dr. Frank Anthony spoke about the successful year that Guyana had in Sports during 2010.
The Sport Minister said that it was because of this country’s organising skills that made it the preferred choice for the hosting of several major events with the opening ceremony of the 20/20 World Cup and the Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Rugby tournament.
He said that Government was pleased to provide the infrastructure needed for those events and will be making sure that more events are guaranteed. 2011 will see the almost completion of its Olympic-size swimming pool at Liliendaal and the completed squash courts at Woodford Avenue.
A shower of praise rained on the awardees especially to the Sportsman-of-the-year Hugh Ross who became the first Guyana to be crowned Mr Universe last year which, to him, was his crowning moment in the sport of Bodybuilding.