In her address to the National Assembly on Day two of this year’s budget debates, Honourable Nima Flue-Bess Shadow Minister of Culture Youth and Sports, posited that upon her examination of this ministry “the policy direction leaves much to be desired”.
She added, in spite of the budgetary allocation from the previous year, there were a lot of poorly executed completed works and unfinished projects, which illustrates how important these areas are to the government.
Flue-Bess drew attention to the substandard treatment of Guyanese athletes emphasizing that providing citizens with secure facilities and recreational areas is just one of the numerous functions of government in the sports industry.
She further stated that “the most distressing experience when attending local competitions is the poorly kept and non-functioning washroom facilities at these venues. At the recently concluded National Sports Championships at the Lenora National Stadium washroom facilities had serious issues… why should our athletes endure sitting on hardwood, lying on concrete and spinning in different directions or holding umbrellas to be protected from the sun and rain?” While International athletic events held in Guyana, however, were given priority.
In his presentation Honourable Charles Ramson refuted these claims and underscored that ‘between 2011 and 2014 the PPP/C spent 300 million Guyana Dollars on the Community Enhancement Programme” and it was the APNU/AFC who after spending 100 million Guyana Dollars per year on that programme left these community grounds in “bad conditions.” Ramson affirmed that “the PPP/C will support 350 community grounds across Guyana with it’s one Billion dollars budgetary allocation.
Declaring that “this will be the greatest transfer of wealth to ordinary Guyanese in any 5 years, and it will be the greatest transformation in our country’s history to do this we need big budgets,” Minister Ramson reaffirmed his position on the first trillion-dollar budget for the country.