sharlene.rampersad@guardian.co.tt
The Sport Company of T&T (SporTT) currently owes the T&T Electricity Commission over $10 million in arrears.
This was revealed at the 49th meeting of the Parliament’s Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC) for the examination of the expenditure and internal controls of the Ministry of Sport and Youth Affairs yesterday.
During the meeting, committee member, Wade Mark, questioned Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Sport and Youth Affairs, Farook Hosein about the debt, asking whether Hosein was aware of it and how the ministry plans to reduce it.
But Hosein, who said he only joined the ministry about seven months ago, said he was not aware of the debt.
When Mark turned his attention to Chief executive officer (CEO) of SporTT, Jason Williams, the committee was told that SporTT has a number of outstanding debts.
“I am aware of a significant amount to T&TEC, it could be $10M, our outstanding debts are communicated to the ministry, we break them down in different categories, utilities, maintenance, janitorial,” Williams said.
Mark asked Hosein to submit in writing whether the ministry has a payment plan for the payment of the outstanding amount and the details of that plan.
Chairman of the committee, Brigid Annisette-George, also questioned Hosein about the maintenance of the Aquatic Centre and the Cycling Velodrome in Couva.
Annisette-George said the committee visited both facilities on September 4 and noticed maintenance issues, including a broken spout and disconnected plumbing.
Hosein said the funding for maintenance was very limited as SporTT received a $60M allocation while its expenditure was estimated to be about $17M more than that.
Williams, however, said the company asked for $260M to cover maintenance but were only given $60M.
From this sum, he said managers and the board decided priority should be placed on getting athletes to the Olympics.
To this, Annisette-George replied, “I got the impression that a lot of what we would call the day-to-day maintenance was being done on an as-needed basis and our concern is that even though you are managing the budget, the type of maintenance that is ongoing put the whole integrity of the facility at risk and therefore, whether the balance is the right balance.”
She said to fix the broken spouting now would cost way less than to repair the damage over time to the facility from being exposed to waste and rainwater.