I've been do­ing some re­search on the al­leged cost of these aquat­ic cen­tres be­ing bandied about, and the re­sults are dis­turb­ing, to say the least. The source of my re­search was the re­cent­ly-com­plet­ed aquat­ic cen­tre in Guyana and the com­pa­ra­ble lo­cal labour rates.

For what we are pay­ing per unit in T&T we can get at least two and a half cen­tres in Guyana, in­clu­sive of kick­backs at in­ter­na­tion­al­ly ac­cept­ed rates. The cost of the pool alone in Guyana is sig­nif­i­cant­ly cheap­er than what is be­ing thrown at us here.

The com­pa­ny se­lect­ed by the Guyana Gov­ern­ment has built in ex­cess of 1,300 pools world­wide. Talk about ex­pe­ri­ence. I am now left to won­der if the high cost to us is due to lock­er/change rooms, com­plete with full elit­ist re­galia! Mr Sports Min­is­ter, Madam PM, please have some­one with in­tel­li­gence and an idea of con­struc­tion vis­it your Guyanese coun­ter­part and you would be amazed at the cost sav­ings to be re­alised.

Lin­coln Seep­er­sad

San Fer­nan­do