From the moment that he took office as Minister of Sport and Youth Affairs, it seemed that Anil Roberts was intent on proving that the Sport Company of Trinidad and Tobago (SporTT) was a conduit for financial waste and potential scandal.The Minister's enthusiasm to denounce the management company came across as premature and politically motivated then, and it's hard to separate that first impression from the action taken on Friday, when 107 employees of the company were summarily dismissed in what amounts to a purge of the organisation's staff.
Certainly, the accusations made by the Minister and the newly appointed SporTT chairman, Rhett Chee Ping are disturbing.According to the Sport Minister, salaries being paid to senior staff were out of line with expected norms, contracted staff were assigned duplicate duties, there was no organisational structure and accountability was lacking if not entirely absent.
The auditing of the sport management company is still proceeding, the first review of SporTT's finances since 2004, and that project has stretched from weeks into months.Despite this ongoing lack of financial accountability, for six years, the SporTT company was allocated roughly $100 million per year for its operations between 2004 and 2010.
One key revelation in the audit procedure is a shortfall of $90 million in the $700 million allocated to SporTT since it began operations. The money apparently cannot be accounted for in the records reviewed by the auditors to this point.These are questions that must be added to the other matters on record as liabilities of judgement by the SporTT company, which was responsible for the $2 million national flag at the stadium in Port-of-Spain, issues arising from the refurbishment of stadia for the Caribbean Games and the management of the construction of the Brian Lara Stadium in Tarouba, which remains unfinished after five years under construction and more than three years after the Cricket World Cup, the event it was built to house, came to an end.
Add to those embarrassments, the current situation facing SporTT is a company which has so far failed to publish its financial reports and is unable to draw down funds to pay contractors who worked on refurbishing the Hasely Crawford Stadium for the Under-17 World Cup. Despite these troubling revelations, it remains open to question whether the action taken on Friday was fair to many of the employees contracted to work in the business of sport in Trinidad and Tobago.
Most of the accusations being made by Minister Roberts and SporTT Chairman Rhett Chee Ping seem more properly directed at the management of the company and its financial officers, and the dismissal of dozens of workers seems a drastic response to the information brought to the Minister by the audit team.
On the surface of things, the terms of the dismissal, though brusque, seem fair enough, once separation payments are made punctually and in alignment with the terms of each individual's contract with the company.The final evaluation of these dismissals will come in the next actions of the Sport Minister and the company's chairman.
The severity of the dismissals at SporTT must be matched by ruthlessly transparent evaluations of what is found at the company, inclusive of the auditor's final report to the Minister on the state of affairs it found during its investigations.Where there are criminal lapses of judgment in the SporTT company's operations, charges should be laid with those officers of the company responsible for the alleged mismanagement of public funds.
Finally, in the shortest possible time, a formal management structure for the organisation, with clear accountabilities, should be shared with the public and suitably qualified individuals, including those who may have been separated during the current housecleaning exercise, invited to pursue their talent and love for sport in Trinidad and Tobago on a professional basis.