Di­ane Hen­der­son, Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Olympic Com­mit­tee, is hop­ing the gov­ern­ment’s in­creased al­lo­ca­tion to the Min­istry of Sports and Youth Af­fairs, by Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo in his pre­sen­ta­tion of the 2027 Bud­get at the Red House, Port-of-Spain, on Mon­day, Oc­to­ber 12, is geared to­wards this coun­try’s prepa­ra­tions for the Los An­ge­les Olympics 2028 (LA28).

Hen­der­son was speak­ing at the TTOC’s cer­e­mo­ny held to re­ward the ath­letes who medalled at the Ju­ly/Au­gust Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games at the Trinidad and To­ba­go Olympic Com­mit­tee Olympic House, Wood­ford Street, Port-of-Spain, on Tues­day.

In his pre­sen­ta­tion, Min­is­ter Tan­coo said $519,927,100 had been al­lo­cat­ed to the Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs, with the fin­er de­tails to be un­veiled by Line Min­is­ter Phillip Watts dur­ing de­bate on the 2027 fis­cal pack­age.

The al­lo­ca­tion in 2027 is an in­crease of $255,828,600 on the $328,652,400 al­lo­ca­tion to the min­istry in 2026, which was lat­er re­vised to $264,098,500 as part of Min­is­ter Tan­coo’s pre­sen­ta­tion of the $63.4 bil­lion na­tion­al bud­get for fis­cal year 2027 in the par­lia­ment as com­pared to his first bud­get in 2026, which was $59.232 bil­lion.

Hen­der­son, in her re­sponse to the al­lo­ca­tion to sports, said, “The Trinidad and To­ba­go Olympic Com­mit­tee ac­knowl­edges yes­ter­day’s (Mon­day) pre­sen­ta­tion of the na­tion­al bud­get fis­cal year 2027 and wel­comes the gov­ern­ment’s fram­ing of sport un­der the theme ‘Sport and Youth In­spir­ing Ex­cel­lence, Build­ing In­dus­try’.”

“The ex­plic­it iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of sport tourism as one of six na­tion­al pri­or­i­ty growth sec­tors along­side a tar­get to in­crease tourism’s con­tri­bu­tion to Gross Do­mes­tic Prod­uct (GDP) by 2030 rep­re­sents a mean­ing­ful and wel­comed el­e­va­tion of sports’ role in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s eco­nom­ic strat­e­gy.

“This ini­tia­tive is a con­ver­sa­tion the TTOC has long cham­pi­oned, and we are en­cour­aged to see it re­flect­ed at the high­est lev­el of na­tion­al pol­i­cy.

Hen­der­son was al­so pleased to see the na­tion­al ath­letes be­ing recog­nised for their per­for­mances on the world stage, say­ing, “The gov­ern­ment’s ac­knowl­edge­ment of our ath­letes’ per­for­mances at the 2025 World Ath­let­ics Cham­pi­onships in Tokyo and the 2025 Ju­nior Pan Amer­i­can Games and the Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games is ap­pre­ci­at­ed.”

“These achieve­ments did not hap­pen by ac­ci­dent; they are the prod­uct of ded­i­cat­ed ath­letes, com­mit­ted coach­es and the sus­tained work of our na­tion­al sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions. They de­serve to be recog­nised, and they de­serve to be re­sourced.”

Hen­der­son al­so wel­comed the idea of T&T host­ing re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al events, as well as the many hun­dreds of for­eign ath­letes in a sin­gle year vis­it­ing our shores, where the in­fra­struc­ture is be­ing put to pro­duc­tive use, but al­so not­ed more em­pha­sis must be placed on prepar­ing our ath­letes and sup­port staff as well as lo­cal sport­ing bod­ies.

She added, “The TTOC sup­ports the gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to at­tract­ing high­er-pro­file com­pe­ti­tions in fis­cal 2027; how­ev­er, while the TTOC is pleased with the con­tin­ued in­fra­struc­ture, we would rather the re­sources go to­wards the ath­letes and the sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions.

“We note the $519.9 mil­lion over the 2026 al­lo­ca­tion of 328 mil­lion, and it is our hope that a pro­por­tion­ate sum is iden­ti­fied to­wards the path­way the ath­letes, the coach­es, ad­min­is­tra­tors, and na­tion­al sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions that sup­port them re­quire as ded­i­cat­ed, con­sis­tent and ad­e­quate re­sourc­ing as T&T pre­pares for the Pan Am Games 2027 and looks to­wards Los An­ge­les 2028. Hen­der­son warned that this is not the mo­ment to be un­der­whelmed with num­bers.

She not­ed that dis­cus­sions have been held with the Ho­n­ourable Min­is­ter of Sports and Youth Af­fairs fo­cus­ing on the path­way to­wards LA 2028.

“This is part of our method­olog­i­cal pro­gramme, es­pe­cial­ly the three top sports – cy­cling, swim­ming and ath­let­ics – and we hope that the dis­cus­sions will ob­vi­ous­ly con­tin­ue and the re­sources to sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions and, by ex­ten­sion, the ath­letes re­quire what they re­quire to in­crease the per­cent­age of the pos­si­bil­i­ty of suc­cess at qual­i­fiers and cham­pi­onships lead­ing up to LA 2028.

Hen­der­sion said she was ex­cit­ed for con­tin­ued and con­struc­tive en­gage­ment with the Min­istry of Sports and Youth Af­fairs in the spir­it of build­ing to­geth­er the sport­ing na­tion, our ath­letes, and what our peo­ple de­serve.