Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport Charles Ramson Jnr., says that he does not take criticism personally but rather sees it as something that has to be addressed.
Ramson Jnr., was responding to the fact that the government criticized for its handling of the Athletics Association of Guyana, recent CARIFTA Games fiasco where the government was forced to step in and get the nation’s youth track and field athletes back home after participating in the 50th anniversary meet in The Bahamas.
Asked to react to the criticism his ministry faced for not being on top of the situation against the fact that government interference in the administration of sports associations is frowned up Ramson Jnr., declared: “So, it’s a legitimate finger to point when it comes to where the responsibility lies for the care of the people of the country. It is not necessarily a legitimate finger to point on who is responsible for the fiasco but it is a legitimate finger to point in relation to who has responsibility for the care of the people of the country and that’s where the distinction is important because what we have acknowledged on our side, the government side, is that when the fingers started pointing in our direction, is that people are turning to the fact that they want government to rescue the situation to find a solution to the problem,” he told Stabroek Sport on Saturday.
Ramson Jnr., said that if the people of a country do not have confidence in the government of the day then they would not look to the government for solutions to whatever problem there is.
“If people didn’t have confidence in government they wouldn’t even turn to government, they won’t even say `well what’s the government doing’ and I think that that’s a role for government. A role for government is always finding solutions for problems. There has always existed a problem so it’s not a situation where this Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport, had caused this problem. There has always existed a problem. In fact, there have been horror stories for many, many decades in relation to teams travelling but there has to be a solution and the solution in this situation where the people of the country are saying `we don’t want to see this experience happen again,’ from my standpoint, my personal standpoint is that I don’t ever want to see something like this happen again. We have the ability to find a solution by putting our heads together so I don’t try to personalize where the criticism is too much.”
According to Ramson Jnr., the role of being a leader is to find solutions to problems that may occur.
“The issue is we have to find a solution and that’s what the role of leadership is in relation to government particularly, and that’s what it is all about.”
