By Neto Baptiste
Minister of Sports Daryll Matthew has labelled the challenges associated with the installation of key utilities at the building now housing the ministry, as an “embarrassment,” while adding that “a bit of complacency” by administrators may have resulted in the prolonged wait.
Speaking recently with Observer media, Matthew said that although the absence of telephone and internet service at the St John’s office should not hinder the day-to-day activities of the coaches, efforts to have the services installed have not yet yielded results.
“It is something that has caused quite a bit of embarrassment to the ministry, though I would dare say that it ought not to hinder the work of the coaches because most of the coaches work out in the field at the schools anyway. I suppose because of a little bit of complacency on the part of some of our administrators in the Ministry of Sports, that it just got pushed on the backburner unfortunately, but like I said, it’s not an office where persons sit in the office all day, every day. Persons who work there, work in the schools, and so I suppose it had not been given the sort of priority that it ought to have been given for that reason,” he said.
The Ministry of Sports, since relocating to the old CWI building in March last year, has been without telephone lines and access to the internet.
According to Matthew, the building which is located just behind the High Court on Parliament Drive, must first be rewired before the issues can be resolved.
“Persons would be aware that the building was occupied for many years by Cricket West Indies. Having vacated the building and moved into their new headquarters at Coolidge, they removed all of the telephone and internet infrastructure from the building, so effectively the entire building needs to be rewired. I’ll be the first to admit that that should have been done a long time ago, and I can tell you that as recently as two Wednesdays ago, I had conversations with the new minister of utilities, Minister Nicholas and he is also Minister of Information, so they will be proceeding swiftly and not only to complete an assessment of what it would require to rewire that whole building with the sort of telecoms infrastructure, but the installation of the services should be imminent,” he said.
A number of staff, including Director of Sports Heather Samuel-Daley have spoken on the issue with Daley commending the staff for their resolve despite not being able to carry out some functions due to the issues.
Reports are that staff have been working shortened hours from 8am to 12pm daily since the sports department was relocated from the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium.
