Trinidad GuardianIn the hunt for new Sports MinisterBy Martin George
Published: 1 Nov 2009
Martin George
The sports Minister should either get a publicist or a PR firm to guide and advise him, or he should just learn to say “No comment.” Each time he opens his mouth to speak, he tends to rub a lot of people the wrong way. The latest imbroglio in his string of ministerial gaffes is the oversized and over-priced national flag erected at the Hasely Crawford Stadium, at a reputed price of around $2,000,000, and still he could not confirm the exact final price. This is from a minister who at first spurned the idea of the government financing the national cricket team in the recent twenty/20 series in India. He said it was a tournament organised by private sector companies, so therefore the private sector had a responsibility to come forward with sponsorship. He then shifted blame to the organisers of the tournament, saying that they had a responsibility for some of the expenses.
logoThen, when the team kept on winning and the lack of official government sponsorship became even more embarrassing, he began to cast about for scapegoats and became even more creative in his excuses. On reaching the final and losing to New South Wales, he is reported to have had the insensitivity and lack of tact, when pressed as to how the government might consider rewarding the team for their performance, by responding: “Well, you know they did not win.” Once again, the goodly minister has missed the point and missed the boat. Of course, we all know they did not win; it does not take Einstein to discover that fact. The idea was that these lads had provided a morale boost and lift for the entire nation by their inspired performances during the tournament. It is such petty, puerile responses which always get this minister in trouble with public opinion all the time.
Being a minister of government saddles you with a greater responsibility to always look at the bigger picture and to act as the bigger person. Of course, the minister must have realised the thinking behind the query, so if it is that at a government level they had not yet discussed it, all he had to do was to offer heartiest congratulations to the team; thank them for their efforts on behalf of the nation, and say that the issue of a reward had not been looked into yet, but he could seek to discuss it. End of story.
Instead, he responds like a mischievous schoolboy, to say: Well, you know they did not win. This minister has had his run-ins with Chaguanas West MP Jack Warner, and has come out on the losing end of most of these bruising battles with Jack. In the embarrassment with the excessive requests for free football tickets and with so many other issues, the goodly Minister of Sports has displayed to the nation a lack of maturity, statesmanship and aplomb, when dealing with national issues.
Compared with some previous Ministers of Sport, he seems to be cut from a different cloth, and appears to be a radical departure from the norms of accepted ministerial diplomacy and sensitivity. He has tried to dredge and shore up his faltering credibility within the national community by scaring up figures to say that the Government provided $650,000 to the T&T cricket team for the tournament, and that the TDC also gave them $100,000, only for him to be discredited by Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board. Chief executive officer Forbes Persaud said no money was given to the team for the Airtel Twenty/20 Championships, and instead, that at the start of the fiscal year, the Government allocated this $650,000 generally to them for development programmes and for all championships throughout the year. Furthermore, he said the promised $100,000 from TDC had not even materialised yet.
How embarrassing; how disingenuous of the minister? Why go through all these devises, ruses and shenanigans in an attempt to hoodwink the public? $650,000 to pay for preparation for all championship tournaments for the year, plus development programmes, yet the same minister seems to have no qualms about trying to justify the erection of a single flag at the National Stadium at a reported cost of almost $2,000,000 dollars! How does one justify that? The explanations he has given make even less sense, as he suggests that this one flag at the stadium is supposed to lift spirits and spark national pride—at a cost of $2,000,000? Is this flag being planted on the moon, or on Mars or Venus? If that were the case, then by all means we could stand with pride and feel this was an expenditure well-justified, but this is not the case. The only thing we may now be recognised for is if we make it into the Guinness Book of Records for having the world’s most expensive flag.
This $2,000,000 is more than three times the $650,000 they boast of having given the cricketers, yet the cricketers have stamped our image, name and brand on so many quarters of the world by their recent performances. They have won the hearts of billions of fans the world over; they have sparked pride in the hearts of nationals in every corner of the globe, in every city, town, village or metropolis where a Trinbagonian heart is beating. They filled us with joy, pride and a sense of achievement, yet all our Minister of Sports could say of them is that they did not win, and could not give a commitment to rewarding them? Yet, he feels justified in rewarding some contractor or service provider with a $2,000,000-contract to erect a flag. If he keeps this up, then when the infamous Johnson poll of ministers’ performance comes around again, we shall definitely be in the hunt for a new Minister of Sports.
