Local sports need better publicity

NEW chairman of the Sports Company of TT Douglas Camacho, said getting rid of the bad publicity sporting organisations face in TT is one of his goals, after being announced as Dinanath Ramnarine’s replacement.

Sports Minister Shamfa Cudjoe revealed the decision to replace Ramnarine was taken by Cabinet on Thursday afternoon.

Ramnarine, who held the position since May 2017, has been at the helm of SporTT amid a restructuring of the embattled Company to improve its efficiency going forward. As a result, several employees have been told they were no longer needed.

In the first major shake up at SporTT under Ramnarine, its former CEO Adam Montserin and four others were fired following the completion of a forensic audit conducted by Pricewaterhouse Coopers. The five were among eight SporTT employees who were previously sent on administrative leave. Cudjoe, asked on Thursday why Ramnarine was replaced declined to elaborate saying, “I cannot discuss Cabinet deliberations,” she said. Calls to Ramnarine’s phone have been unanswered.

A top sport official, who wished to remain anonymous, said Ramnarine left SporTT in a better position than it was in before he entered the position. The official said Ramnarine did the necessary work, which included making tough, unpopular decisions that were necessary to improve efficiency. The sporting official said the Government’s decision to replace Ramnarine must be respected, but nobody could deny the work Ramnarine did.

Camacho, who is also the chairman of the committee that is overseeing the transition of the SporTT to the Sports Commission, said he wants to help give local sporting organisations a better image.

“At least (I want to bring) stability and get rid of some of the bad press surrounding sport in general. I don’t mean SporTT alone, I mean all sports and try to see how we could alleviate some of those unfortunate, unnecessary negative comments that tends to be more popular than the positive things that sports is doing for the country. Hopefully we could start to change that whole agenda.”

Camacho, asked about his plans with the SporTT, said the first major step is helping SporTT transition to the new Sports Commission. “I have not really gone in to see exactly what the sitaution is inside of there yet, so I won’t want to speak without proper, full knowledge.

The Government has set up a commission to look at the transition from the Sports Company to the Sports Commission. The first thing would be to see how best we could handle that transition.”

Camacho said it has to be determined if some of the existing structure would fall into the new structure of the Sport Commission.

Camacho said legislative matters may delay the transition into the Sports Commission, so he is uncertain how long it will take.

“A lot will depend on what the architecture will look like, if it will require legislative stuff or not.

Obviously if it is legislative it is going to be as quickly as the necessary documentations could be drafted and it passes through the legislative calender. If there is a way to do without legislative (documentation), then obviously it will be able to be expedited more quickly.”