Drowning in debt, wastage

DOES the Government have any business being in the pool business?

The State is pouring $6 million down the drain each year for four non-operational community swimming pools. Salaries, utility bills and security fees: all for state-owned facilities closed to the public.

Several years ago, this administration launched a swimming-pool facility in Laventille. The news provoked lots of public discussion: was this an appropriate investment of taxpayers' dollars, given our scarce finances? Who's providing swimming lessons in the community? What are the maintenance protocols?

Not surprisingly, sceptics and critics were shown ye old dog-eared race card – "Allyuh don't want black people to have nuttin." "They wooden say nuttin' if the pool did bild in Wess Morrins, though!"

On paper, the idea of community swimming pools is a good one.

Back in my reporting days, I was always baffled by stories of fishermen drowning at sea for want of swimming ability. We're islands, yet many of us can't swim, and drown at the first chance we get.

Poorer working-class families scarcely have time or resources for regular trips to the seaside. My father taught me to swim as a child. If he couldn't swim, he wouldn't have been able to do that.

How many parents can do the same for their children? How many can afford swimming lessons where they can't impart their own?

Knowing how to swim is a good thing. A swimming pool can be an invaluable epicentre of community life.

However, state involvement, at least in the way it's currently expressed, doesn't hold water.

Sport is often pitched as a tool to redirect rudderless youth from a life of crime. The way it's practised, for the most part, looks like this: state investments facilitate white-collar crime. We lean toward corruption like houseplants towards the light.

To date, I haven't seen any report that convincingly demonstrates how sports facilities have lessened criminality. If anything, crime has skyrocketed, notwithstanding the basketball courts, stadiums, pools, playing fields, etc, spread across the country – many of which are in various states of disrepair and disuse.

The reason these investments don't work as advertised is fairly easy to follow. I'll get into that in a moment.

Revelations about the costs racked up by state-run swimming facilities were part of a report compiled by the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee on the maintenance of nine community swimming pools. The investigation also revealed that the Ministry of Sport and Community Development owes, on behalf of these facilities, tens of millions to T&TEC, WASA, TSTT and the MTS. These arrears are blamed on the late issuance of funds to meet operational costs.

The committee also discussed the murky fee structure at some of these facilities. Many community pools charge no fee at all, while users of the Siparia, Diego Martin, Couva, Sangre Grande and La Horquetta pools have to fork out $40 an hour per person.

How is that hourly fee structure administered? Is someone standing poolside with a watch in one hand and a cascadoux net in the other? Schools are charged a subsidised fee of $100 (TT!) per term.

Why not $1? Why not nothing?

So there's no clear fee structure across state-owed pool facilities.

How we do one thing is how we do everything. In my reporting days I visited more community centres than I can recall. This was usually in pursuit of complaints by residents that the facilities were run-down, neglected and vandalised. In many cases, these buildings were permanently padlocked once the ribbon-cutting and photo op were over.

It's no different with swimming pools. There's no overarching strategy in our governance that links developmental goals, the methods by which they are achieved and the brick-and-mortar to make them happen. Everything is disordered.

Although, quite conveniently, this chaos favours firms and businesses close to the Government that can build and maintain these thirsty white elephants.

The news story on the committee's findings missed perhaps the most important follow-up question of all: how many people in our communities are using these facilities every month? Swimming pools are expensive to own and maintain. That's why rich people like them; they're symbols of opulence.

If the number of users is low, then this makes the wanton waste doubly egregious.

Community swimming pools are important to the creation of well-rounded citizens. It's a shame that the State's hand in it gives the sadim touch – making a money-hungry mockery of what should be oases of growth and opportunity for our people.