… Director of Sport tells National Assembly
DIRECTOR of Sport within the National Sports Commission (NSC) Neil Kumar told the National Assembly on Monday at the 2012 Budget
debate, the tremendous contributions of former President Bharrat Jagdeo towards the development of sports in Guyana must be
recognised. According to Kumar, Guyanese can rejoice today over the fact that the Guyana National Stadium at Providence is a State-of-the-Art stadium that put us at the helm of the Caribbean and the National Aquatic Centre at Liliendaal allows Guyanese to boast that we have
the best Olympic-size swimming pool in this part of the world, that will soon be complemented with a warm-up and warm-down pool.
“Former President Bharrat Jagdeo must be recognised for his tremendous contribution to the development of sports and sport facilities
in particular, in Guyana.  Over the years several sport associations, sport teams and sport personalities received tremendous
assistance from President Jagdeo’s direct intervention. The Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport is collaborating with several other ministries to create a significant impact on social
issues in Guyana through sports.  The alliance with the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education is developing rapidly and our
people’s awareness of the necessity and importance of a healthy lifestyle is quickly growing.”
He added, “The Racquet Centre at Non Pariel is completed and saw our Guyanese Squash players crushing their Caribbean challengers on
our Master showpiece squash courts.Our lawn tennis players were begging for proper courts and today we have two at the Non Pariel venue and our players are making
maximum use of the facilities. Through Sports we are displaying new energies and optimism for our country and under the newly developed Sports Policy, we anticipate
even more remarkable improvement in our sports facilities and the performance of athletes in the near future.
We have established a $100M Annual Sports Fund to support the development of sports which has allowed us to provide support to teams
going to represent Guyana abroad and even more importantly, allowed us to develop sports and physical activity in our schools and
Communities.”  “This Government provided land for the construction of the Headquarters of the Guyana Olympic Association and the National Karate
School to build its dojo while through our ministry, coaches have been employed full time and they are now available to schools and
community-based clubs. “I am proud to let this Honourable House know that we have three world class coaches at present in this country and we expect this
number to increase dramatically in the near future, while there is a swimming and boxing coach from Cuba and we have a swimming coach
from Japan,” stated Kumar. Looking at the recently established Interim Management Committee which is tasked with reforming the now-defunct Guyana Cricket Board,
Kumar said the Ministry of Sport is proud to have the services of former West Indies skipper Clive Hubert Lloyd as the head of that
body. He highlighted the resurfaced National Park carriageway, which enables Guyanese to undergo their daily exercise routine without much
fatigue, while local cycling clubs take advantage of same to organise their meets.
Looking at inclusiveness, Kumar said the synergies between the NSC and the Guyana Volleyball Federation yielded the highly appreciated
new floor at the National Gymnasium, which also enabled Guyana to host several tournaments such as the Caribbean Table Tennis
Championships and the  Diamond Mineral Water Indoor Hockey Festival, just to name two.
Added to that, Guyana also hosted Caribbean Squash Championship, International football, cricket, boxing and rugby, with the latter
being held at the Guyana National Stadium and saw the national rugby team triumphing over their Caribbean counterparts.
“This Government’s spending on sports must be fully supported.  Sports give rise to personal and social discipline and sport
personalities are among the most popular and influential people in the world, thus it is necessary to recognise sports as a path to
peace, social harmony and cohesion,” said Kumar. With regard to the synthetic athletics track at Leonora, Kumar said, “Our PPP/C Government is currently constructing an International
Synthetic Athletic Track at Leonora on the West Coast of Demerara and our footballers will also benefit from an international football
field where they will get an opportunity to train and play under real encouraging conditions.”
He expressed his delight at the leadership of President Donald Ramotar, under which he foresees the further development of sports
taking place in Guyana, continuing the past President’s legacy. “President Ramotar already spoke about a Hall of Fame so that we can recognise yesteryear’s outstanding sports personalities and the younger generation can emulate our great achievers in the field of sport.
Further, President Ramotar called for better and fuller integration of our women in sports and he is for the greater involvement of
the People with Disabilities and more involvement of sports in the hinterland, while he has already alluded to the construction of a
velodrome for our cyclists. After several conversations with President Ramotar, I can only conclude that the next five years will be an exciting time for the
development of sports and all other aspects of our great nation and I must say that I am looking forward to this with great anticipation.”