By Neto Baptiste
Minister of Sports, Daryll Matthew, has urged sporting clubs and community groups to step up to the plate and play a more active role in the maintaining and managing of community sporting facilities.
Responding to queries from one caller to the Good Morning Jojo sports show regarding the need for upgrading and maintaining of some community fields by government, Matthew said government cannot do everything on its own.
“Is there no role for the community groups or the stakeholders in cricket or football or whatever to look after the things they want to use? Must it be the exclusive responsibility of government to go and look after everybody field for them? Come on, let’s be real. There are some things a government just has to do, things like installing lights because you can’t expect a community group to do that,” he said.
Matthew went on to add that some aspects regarding the upgrading of the fields must however be handled by government.
“There are certain things that there cannot be a reasonable expectation on the part of government that community groups would be expected to do and some of these things are the erection of lights and getting light-posts and so on and I can agree and accept that those sort of things really should be the purview of government,” he said.
Matthew assured that clubs and or community groups are encouraged to reach out to the ministry for possible assistance with the upgrading of their sporting facilities and or fields.