Don’t blame me for your incompetence, says Minister
Minister of Sports Anil Roberts yesterday hit back at officials of the T&T Football Association and T&T Hockey Board following criticism of his Ministry regarding funding for their teams’ participation at recent foreign competitions.
Allegations were made that late payments by the Ministry forced T&T’s Under 15 football team to withdraw from a Concacaf tournament in the Cayman Islands and the T&T senior hockey team’s trip to the Pan American Field Hockey Championships in Canada was jeopardised because of a lack of support from the Ministry.
Speaking at the Ministry’s office in Port-of-Spain yesterday, Roberts claimed that the organisations had failed to follow proper procedure for requesting funds by submitting late proposals and later laid the blame on the Ministry for their own “incompetence.”
“Lately I have seen a trend where when you are under pressure, when you are incompetent, you blame the Ministry,” he said. “I would like these NGBs to understand that there are rules for accessing taxpayers money... There is no incompetence fund for people who cannot budget properly, so don’t blame us. The responsibility falls on the same people who are talking but it is my turn to talk now.”
The Minister explained that the complicated and time-consuming procedure did not allow for requests to be made just ahead of a team’s departure.
“Every sporting organisation, early in the year, by March or April, must present their wishlist, their budget for the upcoming fiscal period. After this we sit down here at the Ministry and go through what is possible and what is not... It’s a very long process to deal with public funds so when people like the TTFA send a request on such short notice, it is absolutely ludicrous.
Let me say that the TTFA never, on their initial budget, put anything about the Under 15 tournament in the Cayman Islands or Mars or anywhere on this planet or the universe. They then made a very late request on July 31 for a tournament that was due to begin in August. That is incompetence of the highest order.”
Despite the late request by the TTFA, Roberts said the Ministry tried its best, in the interest of the athletes, to put things in place though trouble booking flights had blocked them in the end. He also noted that the TTFA, without informing the Ministry, had hired elite coaches Leo Beenhakker and Stephen Hart for its senior national team at a price tag in the range of $75,000 US per month.
“When you allocated all that money to go towards the big boys, you did not care about children and then you came and made a late request and came and blamed the Ministry. Get your house in order and stop blaming the Ministry.”
Roberts also had harsh words for President of the T&T Hockey Board Douglas Camacho, who told the media the board had struggled to receive funding for the national team’s trip to Canada after putting in a request weeks in advance of the tournament. The Minister refutted his statements, claiming the Board’s request had been submitted just four days ahead of T&T’s first match on August 10.
“Mr Camacho, who has been president of the T&T Olympic Committee and TTHB, who has been involved in sport for so long, does not even understand the system up to now. You can spend many years in a job and learn absolutely nothing and talk absolute rubbish when you are ready,” he said, presenting the Board’s letter dated August 6.
“First and foremost, his statement about several weeks is not true... Mr Camacho has the audacity to attack the Ministry for his total abject incompetence, his misinformation, his being a stranger to the truth. As a competent president of a board you must understand the system and budget in advance and if you cannot so do you should resign. Further more, he told an untruth to the national media... I am deeply disturbed that somebody who has spent so much time in sport knows so little. Mr Camacho when you are speaking please speak the truth. Our children are listening.”
Roberts added that the Ministry managed to scrape together approximately $243,000 for the trip, during which T&T eventually won a bronze medal.
“We don’t have any money sitting down here waiting to swipe a card to give Mr Douglas Camacho four days before a tournament because he cannot do his job properly so I call on the associations to get more professional and if people like Mr Camacho cannot handle it, come out and let somebody who can handle it do the job.”
By Mark Pouchet (T&T Express).
INCOMPETENT
Minister of Sport Anil Roberts said yesterday national sporting organisations (NSOs) should not blame the Ministry and its workers for the incompetence of the NSOs’ administrators who submitted budgets late for overseas tournaments.
Roberts said there will be no “incompetence funding” for NSO administrators who skirt the normal protocol of submitting yearly budgets by April each year, especially after the Ministry and its public servants bend backwards to attempt facilitate extra-budgetary expenditure.
Roberts directly addressed the issue of the budget requests of the successful men’s senior hockey team who won bronze at the 2013 Pan American Cup hosted in Canada; the non-attendance of the T&T Under-15 team at a CONCACAF tournament in the Cayman Islands; and the failure of the country’s junior athletes to attend this wekend’s Pan Am Junior Championships in Colombia.
Roberts said when the country should be celebrating Jehue Gordon’s and George Bovell’s World Championships gold and bronze medals respectively, he had to deal with misleading information being disseminated about funding by some NSOs.
“We cannot make (up) for the incompetence of officials in NSOs,” the Minister said at a press conference at his Abercromby Street office yesterday.
As proof, Roberts provided correspondence between the Ministry and the Trinidad and Tobago Football Association and the Trinidad and Tobago Hockey Board to illustrate his point about late budget submissions.
Roberts said 88 per cent of the country’s NSOs duly completed and submitted their budgets by April 2013.
Roberts said in the case of the TTFA, their initial budget did not include the Under-15 tournament in the Cayman Islands.
Then, the TTFA wrote on July 31 through their general secretary Sheldon Phillips for a tournament starting in August.
“It is a very long process to deal with public funds for money that is budgeted. So it is absolutely ludicrous, it is incompetence of the highest order and it is very easy to blame the Minister and the Ministry for your incompetence in not allowing children to go to a tournament,” he said, claiming that the TTFA had enough money to hire highly paid coaches in Leo Beenhakker and Stephen Hart without funds from the Ministry but could not afford an Under-15 tournament.
Concerning the junior track team’s woes, the Minister said the NAAA’s funding request was only received two months ago.
In the case of the TTHB, Roberts referred to correspondence signed by TTHB president Douglas Camacho on August 6, four days before the start of the Pan Am Cup, making request for financial assistance.
Camacho was quoted in a daily newspaper as saying that ‘it was no fault of the Board (TTHB) that the squad received funds in such an untimely manner.’ He said the TTHB had put forward their request several weeks ahead of the Pan Am Cup competition.
“You (NSOs) should get no funding whatsoever based on the system of budget allocation, budget request transparency and accountability,” Roberts said. “But as a competent understanding president, he (Camacho) should have presented a budget well in advance. If you cannot do so, you should resign. He told an untruth because he did not submit it several weeks before, he did it four days before the first match.”
He added: “I am deeply perturbed and disturbed that somebody like Mr Camacho who has spent so much time in sport knows so little.”
By JULIEN NEAVES (T&T Newsday).
SPORTS Minister Anil Roberts has accused the Trinidad and Tobago Hockey Board (TTHB) and the Trinidad and Tobago Football Association (TTFA) of “incompetence” in making late requests for funding for tournaments and then blaming the ministry when funds are not disbursed in a timely manner.[/b]
But TTHB president Douglas Camacho has hit back at the minister for being “disingenuous” and reported that requests for funds for their recent Pan American tournament was made a year ago. He also reported that a number of sporting organisations were having difficulties in getting funding from the ministry but preferred to “hush their mouth” and hope to get assistance.
Roberts held a media conference yesterday at his ministry offices on Abercromby Street, Port-of-Spain, to respond to comments in two newspaper articles about ministry funding for sport.
He first criticised the TTFA and by extension national Under-15 football coach Shawn Cooper for comments that the ministry was late with funding and they were therefore unable to secure flights for the inaugural CONCACAF Under-15 Championship being played in the Cayman Islands this month.
Roberts noted, however, that the TTFA never included a request for funding for the tournament in the Cayman Islands in their initial budget, which should be provided in March or April. He said they sent “a very late request”, after money had been allocated, on July 31 for a tournament scheduled to begin in August. He noted that despite the late request the ministry did their best to facilitate them but there was an unavailability of flights.
He also took issue with Camacho’s comments in an article in yesterday’s Newsday that it was not the board’s fault that the national squad received funds in “such an untimely manner” for the 2013 Field Hockey Championships in Ontario last week, for which they took home an historic Pan American bronze medal. Camacho had reported that financial requests to the Sports Ministry had been submitted “several weeks ahead of the competition”.
Roberts stressed that “several weeks” was very late and an organisation would normally get no funding in that case. He noted that the hockey squad’s first match was August 10, 2013 and the letter to ministry Permanent Secretary Ashwin Creed from the hockey board requesting funds on August 6, 2013.
“And Mr Douglas Camacho has the audacity to attack the ministry officials, the minister, the ministry, the public officials, for his total abject incompetence, his misinformation, his being a stranger to the truth,” he said.
Camacho, however, said the request for funds for that tournament was included in the budget the year before but the money was not disbursed. He reported that last year when the TTHB was asked to host the International Hockey Federation inaugural World League they explained to the Sports Company of Trinidad and Tobago (SPORTT) that the new tournament was not budgeted, and SPORTT would have to pay for it from a separate allocation.
Camacho noted that, contrary to the arrangement, SPORTT subsequently advised TTHB that their allocation had been used up with the World League and there was no funding for the Pan Am games. He said that SPORTT, hockey’s line organisation, advised TTHB to seek funding from the Sports Ministry.
He noted that about May this year they began approaching the ministry and had tried to set up meetings with no success.
He recalled at one point they were very close to pulling teams out of the tournament, but they tried a different channel and funds were disbursed at the “11th hour”.
Camacho noted the August 6 letter the minister referred to was requested by then acting Sports Minister Winston Peters.