VICE PRESIDENT Guyana, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, said that the government continues to put heavy focus on the development of the country’s people through sports.
According to the Vice President, more efforts will be placed at the grassroot and schools’ level to advance sports and the country’s sporting fortunes.

“It’s not just facilities but through the ministry we have now started procuring mass quantity of gears for these groups that will be playing more cricket and football and other sports. We are looking at the school level, re-introducing in the curriculum sports in a major way, so it’s a comprehensive approach to the development of sports and recreation in the country,” the VP said.
He noted the works being done to build new or improve existing stadia in New Amsterdam, Palmalrya and Albion, an effort being replicated in many other regions of the country.

“This is not a unique, in linden you will see the same thing, we will soon start a new stadium that they Qatari government is giving to us from world cup football, and that will be placed in one of the populous regions in the country, region 3, which will be another international facility; in Anna Regina is the same thing; this runs into billions of dollars. In the indigenous communities, when the toshoas were here, we gave them an allocation so that in each community in 242 Amerindian villages they can start developing their own facility,” Dr. Jagdeo said.

The VP added that the works in sports complement what is being done in Education, Health and other sectors of the country.
He noted the investment outlined in this year’s budget shows the enormity of the infrastructure push and its intended effects for the sporting fraternity.

“Right across Guyana, we have either initiated projects or are completing projects to give effect to that bigger vision. In berbice we have 125 grounds, community grounds; we spent over 400 million dollars in that region last year and this year maybe another 400 million on developing all of the grounds”.

He said that sporting initiatives are set to complement the tremendous work being done for the holistic development of the country’s people.

He concluded, “Many of you are more familiar with the harder programmes of the government, the infrastructure drive, the growth in education and health initiatives for the country but many may not be aware of the enormous resources that we are putting in to transform the physical landscape of the country to make it more amenable to the development of sports and, of course, leisure, entertainment and recreation for our people.”