Gail Alexan­der

Life Sport fund­ing will be kept on a tight leash and there are fir­ings ahead.That's the word on the con­tro­ver­sial Life Sport pro­gramme from Fi­nance Min­is­ter Lar­ry Howai and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith.Both min­is­ters spoke about the pro­gramme yes­ter­day.Howai told the Sen­ate that ad­di­tion­al sums al­lo­cat­ed Life Sport will not be dis­bursed by the Fi­nance Min­istry un­less and un­til the min­istry was as­sured of the le­git­i­ma­cy of the ex­pens­es that the funds were sup­posed to liq­ui­date.

Af­ter the Sen­ate, Grif­fith told re­porters peo­ple in­volved in fi­nan­cial ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties, "per­sons of in­ter­est" and those who were in­dis­ci­plined would be re­moved from Life Sport af­ter the au­dit of the pro­gramme be­ing done by the Fi­nance Min­istry.Howai spoke about the Life Sport au­dit in the Sen­ate while pi­lot­ing leg­is­la­tion to sup­ple­ment the 2014 bud­get with an ad­di­tion­al $3.8 bil­lion for ex­pen­di­ture. It in­cludes al­lo­ca­tion for the pro­gramme.

Howai's min­istry was man­dat­ed by the Prime Min­is­ter in May to do an au­dit of the pro­gramme af­ter al­le­ga­tions of gang in­fil­tra­tion, cor­rup­tion, var­i­ous pub­lic con­cerns and in­for­ma­tion Grif­fith said he had on the sit­u­a­tion.The PM al­so moved the pro­gramme from the Sport Min­istry and placed it un­der Grif­fith's Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry.Speak­ing in the Sen­ate, Howai re­it­er­at­ed his state­ment that the au­dit of Life Sport would be com­plet­ed with­in a fort­night.

He said the pro­gramme, when con­cep­tu­alised, sought to teach life skills, through sport, to the less for­tu­nate. Cab­i­net had ap­proved the ini­tia­tive and it be­gan in 2012 with a bud­get of $6 mil­lion. "At that time the pro­gramme was in pi­lot phase, plan­ning and start-up mode with par­tic­i­pants, coach­es and venues yet to be ful­ly iden­ti­fied," he added.Fund­ing was sub­se­quent­ly in­creased to fa­cil­i­tate ex­pan­sion from the ini­tial three sites to 43, he added.

"In or­der to get the pro­gramme go­ing a loan was arranged, which was par­tial­ly re­paid, and the fund­ing to liq­ui­date the re­main­ing amount was in­clud­ed as part of the bud­get," Howai said.Not­ing var­i­ous al­le­ga­tions lev­elled at the pro­gramme and its ad­min­is­tra­tive staff, he said the Sport Min­is­ter had spo­ken at length on those is­sues. Howai added: "As far as the min­istry's in­volve­ment goes, the Prime Min­is­ter has re­quest­ed an au­dit of the pro­gramme and this is cur­rent­ly in train.

"I am ful­ly cog­nizant of the con­cerns that are in the pub­lic do­main re­gard­ing Life Sport. We share those con­cerns but we have to be sure we do not pre-judge or in­deed prej­u­dice the work of the au­di­tors."While I un­der­stand that time is of the essence, it is my in­ten­tion, in the in­ter­est of ac­count­abil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy, that no stone be left un­turned in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion of this pro­gramme.

"I have there­fore asked that the au­dit of Life Sport be done with com­plete and ut­ter thor­ough­ness. I ex­pect to re­ceive the re­port from the au­di­tors with­in the fort­night and then and on­ly then can a way for­ward be de­ter­mined."He added: "Suf­fice it to say, how­ev­er, that the ad­di­tion­al sum al­lo­cat­ed here for Life Sport is yet to be dis­bursed and will not be dis­bursed by my min­istry un­less and un­til the Min­istry of Fi­nance and the Econ­o­my is as­sured of the le­git­i­ma­cy of the ex­pens­es that the funds are sup­posed to liq­ui­date."

How­ev­er, In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor He­len Dray­ton said she had no con­fi­dence that a full au­dit re­port would be made pub­lic or any­one held ac­count­able if ev­i­dence of wrong­do­ing were found.