Con­grat­u­la­tions to the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go for recog­nis­ing the need for swim­ming pools across the coun­try. Your demon­strat­ed in­ter­est by at­tend­ing the open­ing of the Laven­tille (2019), Mor­vant (2021) and Mal­oney Com­mu­ni­ty pools (2022), and your at­ten­dance at the 2017 CC­CAN Cham­pi­onships is com­mend­able.

How­ev­er, for many of us in aquat­ics, the hope that these fa­cil­i­ties will in­crease the cadre of com­pe­tent and/or com­pet­i­tive swim­mers is lim­it­ed. Some of us watch on in fear and de­spair that these new as­sets will be li­a­bil­i­ties to the state that not on­ly drain the coun­try's in­creas­ing­ly lim­it­ed re­sources, but will be an­oth­er fa­cil­i­ty that ath­letes, coach­es, and aquat­ic en­tre­pre­neurs can­not ac­cess.

The Par­lia­ment's 28th Re­port of the Com­mit­tee of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ap­pro­pri­a­tions in­clud­ed an in­quiry in­to the Main­te­nance of Com­mu­ni­ty Pools. From a pure­ly fi­nan­cial per­spec­tive, the av­er­age an­nu­al cost of chem­i­cals, util­i­ties, ma­te­ri­als, re­pairs, and main­te­nance of a com­mu­ni­ty pool is $750,000. Rev­enue fig­ures were pro­vid­ed for Cou­va, Diego Mar­tin, La Hor­quet­ta, San­gre Grande and Siparia, and the av­er­age an­nu­al rev­enue for each fa­cil­i­ty is $27,000.

There­fore, the net cost of op­er­at­ing each com­mu­ni­ty pool is $723,000. And we have not added salaries, se­cu­ri­ty, and oth­er ex­pens­es. It was re­vealed in the com­mit­tee meet­ing that the se­cu­ri­ty cost at Co­coyea pool was $58,000 per month, which is an­oth­er $700,000 added to the loss for the year for a sin­gle pool. While it is un­der­stood that the aim of the com­mu­ni­ty pools is not prof­it-mak­ing, we should not be com­fort­able with the as­tro­nom­i­cal op­er­a­tional costs of com­mu­ni­ty pools with no ma­te­r­i­al rev­enue for the pools. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the com­mit­tee re­port­ed se­ri­ous main­te­nance chal­lenges which fre­quent­ly made some fa­cil­i­ties more closed than open which is makes it coun­ter­pro­duc­tive to re­al de­vel­op­ment in aquat­ics. The $250,000 an­nu­al spend on chem­i­cals per com­mu­ni­ty seems ex­or­bi­tant and with sure­ty, a re­view of ex­pen­di­ture can cre­ate fur­ther sav­ings.

With these five named pools, to­geth­er with Co­coyea, the three new pools and a Na­tion­al Aquat­ic Cen­tre opened in 2016, has the in­vest­ment yield­ed a re­turn? How many peo­ple in Trinidad and To­ba­go can swim? In fact, has any of these pools pro­duced a team that ac­tive­ly par­tic­i­pates in ASATT com­pe­ti­tions or di­rect­ly con­tributed a sin­gle swim­mer to the Na­tion­al Team? Are ex­or­bi­tant sub­si­dies, or fi­nan­cial loss­es re­al­ly worth it?

The Com­mit­tee rec­om­mend­ed that the Min­istry “should pri­ori­tise the re­vi­sion of the fee struc­ture in or­der to gen­er­ate in­come from Com­mu­ni­ty Swim­ming Pools. This will as­sist in the up­keep and main­te­nance of the Com­mu­ni­ty Swim­ming Pools in the ab­sence of fund­ing. An up­date on the re­vi­sion of the fee struc­ture should be sub­mit­ted to Par­lia­ment by Sep­tem­ber 1, 2020”. There is a def­i­nite need to re­vise the fee struc­ture as a sport must be treat­ed as a busi­ness. Of course, the rates should not be pro­hib­i­tive to the com­mu­ni­ty; but most would agree $100.00 per term for a class of twen­ty-five stu­dents to swim is bor­der­ing on the ridicu­lous. The rec­om­men­da­tion of the com­mit­tee how­ev­er does not con­sid­er the in­come fore­gone by these pools.

Oth­er than re­view­ing the fee struc­ture, the Min­istry should con­sid­er the fol­low­ing to in­crease rev­enue:

i. Swim Clubs which pro­duce na­tion­al ath­letes strug­gle to get a space in pri­vate fa­cil­i­ties and must pay mar­ket rates. This dri­ves their cost of op­er­a­tion up­ward sig­nif­i­cant­ly while our well chlo­ri­nat­ed com­mu­ni­ty pools lay dor­mant with in­ac­tiv­i­ty. Al­low­ing these swim clubs to rent lanes will in­crease fa­cil­i­ty rev­enue

ii. By open­ing the fa­cil­i­ty on week­ends and evenings can pro­vide op­por­tu­ni­ties for ad­di­tion­al paid pro­grammes in­clud­ing out­sourc­ing ac­tiv­i­ties to pri­vate in­di­vid­u­als. This will al­so as­sist in in­creas­ing the base of swim­mers in Trinidad and To­ba­go

iii. Com­mu­ni­ty pools must be a medi­um for sports en­tre­pre­neur­ship and pro­vide train­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for in­di­vid­u­als to be­come in­struc­tors, life­guards, and coach­es. Part­ner­ships with pri­vate or­ga­ni­za­tions can help to de­vise these pro­grammes and earn in­come from cours­es.

iv. The pools can al­so gen­er­ate rev­enue via swim meets, wa­ter po­lo tour­na­ments, aqua aer­o­bics burnouts, all of which can at­tract spon­sors.

v. Wa­ter po­lo has an ex­treme­ly lim­it­ed pres­ence out­side of Port of Spain. There­fore, there is an op­por­tu­ni­ty to add hun­dreds of wa­ter po­lo play­ers to the na­tion­al cadre of ath­letes. En­cour­age the de­vel­op­ment of wa­ter po­lo clubs can al­so be a source of rev­enue

vi. In­tro­duc­ing Aqua Ther­a­py as a ser­vice at all com­mu­ni­ty pools

vii. Us­ing pools as a place that drag­on boat teams can prac­tice, and de­vel­op­ing drag­on boat teams at these fa­cil­i­ties

vi­ii. The cre­ation of a Min­istry of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment pro­vides a unique col­lab­o­ra­tion where mar­kets and fairs can be mar­ried with swim ac­tiv­i­ties cre­at­ing in­come gen­er­a­tion for mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty and the fa­cil­i­ty

There are per­sons who have con­sid­ered pur­su­ing a ca­reer in coach­ing or sports man­age­ment who are aquat­ic pro­fes­sion­als - the vast ma­jor­i­ty can­not con­sid­er this due to lack of avail­able pool time. There are past na­tion­al ath­letes who have left the sport and even left the shores be­cause there are lim­it­ed op­por­tu­ni­ties for some­one to pur­sue a ca­reer in sport in Trinidad and To­ba­go. There are pro­fes­sion­als who have suc­cess­ful­ly run aquat­ic or­ga­ni­za­tions and fa­cil­i­ties that can add val­ue to the com­mu­ni­ty pools and re­duce the bur­den on the tax­pay­er. Com­mu­ni­ty pools should not on­ly pro­vide sub­si­dies but op­por­tu­ni­ties for the growth and de­vel­op­ment of aquat­ics.

We must re­ject the tac­it ac­cep­tance that Gov­ern­ment sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties make loss­es es­pe­cial­ly when we can­not quan­ti­fy the val­ue these pools have made to the com­mu­ni­ty and the coun­try. I urge you Mr Prime Min­is­ter to en­sure that these fa­cil­i­ties are ef­fi­cient­ly op­er­at­ed and prop­er­ly uti­lized.

To close, I share the opin­ion which you gave at the open­ing of the Nu­trim­ix plant where you spoke of “the mo­lasses rate that can ap­ply to the de­ci­sion-mak­ing that's tak­ing place. And that usu­al­ly comes from a lack of vi­sion in the Pub­lic Ser­vice be­cause many of the de­ci­sion-mak­ers do not as­so­ciate them­selves with the out­come of their day's work. The things are dis­con­nect­ed.”

Ed­i­tor’s note: The views ex­pressed in this col­umn are sole­ly those of the au­thor and do not re­flect the views of any or­gan­i­sa­tion of which he is a stake­hold­er.