The Min­istry of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment (MSCD) is adamant that "no Na­tion­al Gov­ern­ing Body of sport (NG­Bs) is treat­ed dif­fer­ent­ly, pref­er­en­tial­ly or with prej­u­dice in the dis­burse­ment of funds and al­lo­ca­tion of man­age­r­i­al at­ten­tion for im­prove­ment of their op­er­a­tions".

On Wednes­day evening, via me­dia re­lease, the min­istry sort to clar­i­fy and re­fute state­ments be­ing made in the pub­lic, specif­i­cal­ly an op­po­si­tion Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Ca­ro­nia Cen­tral, Arnold Ram, who spoke on the side of the Na­tion­al Bas­ket­ball Fed­er­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NBFTT) not get­ting sup­port from the Sports Min­istry for the na­tion­al Un­der-16 bas­ket­ball team's up­com­ing tour.

On Tues­day MP Ram wrote via a me­dia re­lease, "Once again, the Min­is­ter of Sports & Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment demon­strates her un­pa­tri­ot­ic na­ture & lack of in­sight in­to the po­si­tion for which she is en­trust­ed. Here lies an­oth­er demon­stra­tion of the Min­is­ter’s in­com­pe­tence as it re­lates to what is hap­pen­ing with­in her port­fo­lio, in the Min­istry and un­der her nose."

In re­sponse Min­is­ter Cud­joe stat­ed in a me­dia re­lease that, "The NBFTT needs to ac­knowl­edge the fact that their fund­ing re­quest was sub­mit­ted out­side of the pre­req­ui­site sub­mis­sion time­frame, and de­spite this, SporTT still re­viewed the sub­mis­sion and made at­tempts to se­cure fund­ing, even at this very last minute," the re­lease stat­ed and added that: "The Fed­er­a­tion was in­formed of the un­avail­abil­i­ty of fund­ing and that al­ter­na­tive at­tempts are be­ing made through the Min­istry of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment (MSCD). To date, SporTT is still work­ing with MSCD and the Min­istry of Fi­nance to­ward ser­vic­ing the NBFTT’s late re­quest and oth­er sim­i­lar re­quests from oth­er sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions."

This was the sec­ond time this month, the Min­is­ter of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Sham­fa Cud­joe has been forced to re­ply to al­le­ga­tions re­lat­ed to her min­istry's in­abil­i­ty to pro­vide time­ly fund­ing to na­tion­al sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions which have sub­mit­ted an ap­pli­ca­tion for fund­ing late.

On the week­end, the Sports Min­is­ter blast­ed the Aquat­ic Sports As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (ASATT) for at­tempt­ing to play the vic­tim of not get­ting gov­ern­ment fund­ing on Fri­day, when ac­tu­al­ly the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s late sub­mis­sion for fund­ing caused its demise.

A no­tice post­ed on an In­sta­gram ac­count ttowa­ter­po­lo on Fri­day evening blam­ing the woes of the na­tion­al team on MSCD forced Min­is­ter Cud­joe to re­tort: “The pol­i­cy is that re­quests must be sub­mit­ted at least eight weeks be­fore the event, you sub­mit mere two weeks ago and ex­pect mag­ic. Howwww????”

The NBFTT is the lat­est re­cip­i­ent of the Min­is­ter's scold­ing which came in re­sponse to the back­lash re­ceived by the sports min­istry for not giv­ing fi­nan­cial sup­port to the na­tion­al girls' Un­der-16 bas­ket­ball team due to com­pete at next week's Cen­trobas­ket Qual­i­fiers in Nicaragua.

The re­lease stat­ed: "On June 10, 2022, the NBFTT sub­mit­ted an IN­COM­PLETE ap­pli­ca­tion for fund­ing to par­tic­i­pate in a tour­na­ment in Nicaragua. SporTT im­me­di­ate­ly made queries and re­quest­ed the ad­di­tion­al in­for­ma­tion.

"On June 28, 2022, mere three weeks be­fore the tour­na­ment, NBFTT sub­mit­ted the out­stand­ing in­for­ma­tion to com­plete the ap­pli­ca­tion. Sport­ing Bod­ies are well aware that they are re­quired to sub­mit their re­quests for fund­ing sup­port at least three months be­fore the sched­uled event or pro­gramme.

"It is im­por­tant to note that at this time, the NBFTT is delin­quent in pro­vid­ing to SporTT (the agency un­der whose re­mit the Fed­er­a­tion falls) its au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial state­ments for the years 2020 and 2021. Au­dit­ed fi­nan­cials are key in pro­vid­ing ac­count­abil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy with­in an or­gan­i­sa­tion.

"While these doc­u­ments re­main out­stand­ing the NBFTT will not be ful­ly com­pli­ant with the pro­to­cols of SporTT. Be­ing in com­pli­ance en­sures that the gov­ern­ing body, in this case, NBFTT, the man­ag­ing body, in this case, SporTT, and the gov­ern­ment can be ful­ly ac­count­able, re­spon­si­ble and trans­par­ent when it comes to spend­ing tax­pay­ers’ monies.

"SporTT pro­vides both tech­ni­cal and fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance to NG­Bs to­ward en­sur­ing that their au­dit­ed fi­nan­cials are of an ac­cept­able stan­dard. NBFTT should make every ef­fort to ac­cess these much-need­ed ser­vices."

On Tues­day, coach of the youth team, Learie Sandy, a for­mer na­tion­al play­er, start­ed a go­fundme page in aid of his team who is slat­ed to com­pete at the Women’s Cen­trobas­ket U-17 Qual­i­fiers in Nicaragua from Wednes­day to Ju­ly 31. It stat­ed that the team is seek­ing TT$183,060 (US$27,000). As of 5 pm yes­ter­day, some $31,280 (US$4,600) had been raised.

Just yes­ter­day, the NBFTT sent out its own re­lease shar­ing that coach Sandy and his staff have fi­nalised the 12-play­er ros­ter who will rep­re­sent T&T at the Qual­i­fiers, from Wednes­day un­til Ju­ly 31 in Man­agua, Nicaragua.

How­ev­er, their trip re­mains in jeop­ardy but the Min­is­ter con­firmed in the re­lease that her min­istry and SporTT have not turned a blind eye to the na­tion­al U-16 girls' team.

The min­istry's re­lease stat­ed: "The NBFTT needs to ac­knowl­edge the fact that their fund­ing re­quest was sub­mit­ted out­side of the pre­req­ui­site sub­mis­sion time­frame, and de­spite this, SporTT still re­viewed the sub­mis­sion and made at­tempts to se­cure fund­ing, even at this very last minute. The Fed­er­a­tion was in­formed of the un­avail­abil­i­ty of fund­ing and that al­ter­na­tive at­tempts are be­ing made through the Min­istry of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment (MSCD).

"To date, SporTT is still work­ing with MSCD and the Min­istry of Fi­nance to­ward ser­vic­ing the NBFTT’s late re­quest and oth­er sim­i­lar re­quests from oth­er sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions."

The re­lease added that SporTT and MSCD by ex­ten­sion, con­tin­ue to work dili­gent­ly to sup­port all na­tion­al gov­ern­ing bod­ies in their pur­suit of sport­ing ex­cel­lence.

"We urge all NG­Bs to do their part and prop­er­ly play their role in metic­u­lous­ly man­ag­ing the busi­ness of sport, prac­tic­ing dis­ci­pline and or­der­li­ness in the con­duct of their in­ter­nal af­fairs, and com­ply­ing with SporTT’s hum­ble re­quest to sub­mit their ap­pli­ca­tions for sup­port in a whole­some fash­ion and on time."