Minister of Sport and Youth Affairs Anil Roberts came to the rescue of the 40-member Goodwill Swimming Championships team Monday pledging to find the $250,988.50 to cover the entire team. But he advised that that amount will be deducted from the Amateur Swimming Association of Trinidad and Tobago’s (ASATT’s) budget for the upcoming year. The team departs for Suriname today for the August 13-15 competition.
And at a meeting with the parents and swimmers yesterday, Roberts raised the issue of the misallocation of funds by ASATT.
At the meeting yesterday at the Joao Havelange Centre of Excellence facility, Roberts addressed anxious swimmers and parents who were unsure of their participation in the upcoming four-nation meet that includes Barbados, Guyana and Suriname.
“I want to apologise for the torturous way this issue has been handled and want to re-assure the parents and swimmers that we know it is not their fault, so after talking to the deputy permanent secretary (Ashwin Creed) and the Sports Company of Trinidad and Tobago (SPORTT) CEO (Margaret Sampson), we have decided that we will find the money for you to go,” Roberts said to rapturous applause before adding, “but you will start the next year. with a $250,000 deficit.”
Speaking to the Express, Roberts then advised that (ASATT) had exceeded their $2.2 million budget by June. And ASATT had, “without authorisation, sanction or approval,” used up over $300,000 of their funds destined to development of national teams and athletes on the administrative expenses of the aquatic director Hayden Newallo and his assistant Kervin Jean.
On Friday , Sampson advised ASATT president Gregory Collymore that they would fund $70,000 for 16 ten-and-under swimmers and three officials, an amount Roberts said Ministry officials went to great lengths to source.
In explaining the misallocation of funds, Roberts referred to a January 2009 note sent by SPORTT to the Ministry advising that SPORTT had ceased paying or allocating money to pay the salary of the aquatic director Newallo.
The former Olympic swim coach added that ASATT then decided to continue to pay the salary of Newallo and his assistant Jean to the tune of $385,500 for the period January 2009 to June 2010, “without authorisation, sanction or approval from the Ministry of Sports.”
“Those were funds allocated for the development of national teams and programmes, in other words, funds for the swimmers and the children. ASATT will have to answer for this and account for this,” he stated, adding that it was instructive that the $250,988.50 Goodwill T&T team’s price tag would have easily been covered but for that major expense. Prior to the Goodwill outing, ASATT had already surpassed their $2.2 million budget by $757,244.92.
Roberts also reiterated the statements of his deputy permanent secretary Ashwin Creed that Newallo was advised hat ASATT had exhausted their budget allocation in June when officials came for an extra $30,000 for “snacks and water” for the June 28-July 3 Caribbean Islands Swimming Championships (CISC) in Cuba. Roberts advised that his Ministry was in charge of funding 41 national sporting organisations (NSOs).
Roberts believed there was a breakdown in communication and that Newallo failed to convey to the ASATT and swimming community the situation as explained to him and CISC manager Gary Morales by Creed and a SPORTT official at that meeting back in June.
In response to Roberts’ statements about misallocation of funds, ASATT president Collymore said Newallo’s contract, which is for a five-year period that concludes in October 2011, was very vague in terms of which organisation was responsible for the payment of his salary.
“It (Newallo’s contract) did not identify the source from which he was to be paid. It was made between former president Wilfred Espinet and Hayden Newallo,” he said. “As such, although we knew then that it would have been encroaching or placing a stress on our budget for programmes, we went on and paid because of the ambiguous nature of the contract itself.”
Collymore added that on receipt of instructions by correspondence from Dimalien Westfield, the SPORTT official responsible for the swimming schedule of payments, he instructed Newallo by way of a written directive in June and by attaching a copy of Westfield’s correspondence, requesting that Newallo submit the budget for administrative expenses, inclusive of his salary and that of Kervin Jean to the SPORTT.
He said Newallo in turn complied by or around mid-July after Collymore stated he had been verbally advising him to submit documents since January this year. Collymore added that Newallo was requested to submit the budget for the current administrative period July to December 2010 as well as for the period January 2009 to June 2010, which he is yet to submit.
“To condense, this situation has seriously interefered with our ability to fund our teams. I do concur with the Minister,” Collymore said. (Trinidad Express)
