BOOT ‘BABSY’ NOW

“Boot ‘Babsy’: Youth leaders want portfolio shifted to Education Ministry” screams the headline on this week’s edition of the Sunday Gleaner.

We’d argue – Boot Babsy – PERIOD!

As Minister of Sport, she’s been woefully inadequate. And that’s being polite. If there’s a list of under-performing Government ministers Ms. Grange surely heads it. As a  matter of fact, she may be so far ahead she may very well be the only person on the list of non-performing ministers.

Think we’re being unfair?

Well I challenge the reader to name one success, one thing she’s achieved for sport in the three years she’s had the portfolio. Name one thing, any thing.

Instead we’ve seen muck up after muck up; the most recent being the debacle that’s the track at the 50-year-old National Stadium.  The Minister of Sport led a delegation which included Veronica Campbell – Brown and Asafa Powell to Singapore to promote the inaugural Youth Olympics in November 2009. In exchange, Singapore should have provided Jamaica with a new track. Some time in 2010, it became apparent that something was amiss. And the next thing we were told assistance was coming from Australia.

As it stands now at almost the end of January in 2011, the track which is now being replaced, at the start of this year’s track season is being funded by the Sports Development Foundation, (SDF). Jamaica’s SDF! Things get even worse when you look at the calendar of this World Championship year and realise that the first major meet of the year, the Gibson Relays probably will not happen.

Insiders tell us that the Singapore thing might never have been on the cards to begin with and the Australian money was supposed to be shared among the Caribbean. So for all we know that doesn’t exist either.  This episode only highlights what everybody in sport has been saying since she was given the portfolio – the minister is clueless.

Sources within the Ministry of Youth and Sport tell us her ministry is probably the most “disorganized” in all of Government. Everything from procurement issues to the non-delivery of national sports policy has been an exercise of ineptitude, preventing Jamaica from capitalizing on this our most successful period in sports.

Jamaica is racing against the clock to get our facilities ready for the upcoming CONCACAF Under-17 qualifiers in western part of the country as well as the laying of the track at the National Stadium, despite the track season being on in earnest.

This at a time when everybody knows that the country does not have a proper running track as save for the Usain Bolt track and the University of the West Indies. The ones at the GC Foster College, Catherine Hall and Stadium East are in various states of disrepair and almost every club in the Digicel Premier League is facing financial ruin. At the same time and sports like volleyball, tennis, cricket and hockey are barely clinging on for survival. Notwithstanding the tough economic conditions, the troubles facing sports in this country are by-and-large due to mismanagement that starts at the very top.

For example, Minister Grange spent $37 million to refurbish her offices and has no less than seven persons in her public relations department. The Ministry of Education has less than four,  two at the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and both ministries are significantly larger. Yet, Minister Olivia ‘Babsy’ Grange needs seven persons to put out her Ministry’s messages but you can never get the Minister herself to answer direct questions on anything of importance.

The incompetence was highlighted yet again this week when the infamous Victor Conte decided to put Jamaica again in his cross hairs claiming that Jamaica’s athletes, including Bolt and Shelly-Ann Fraser are ‘suspicious’ and that the country’s drug testing mechanisms are inadequate and compromised. Almost a week since he made these damning statements, there’s been no word from the government, i.e. the Minister with portfolio responsibility.

We say enough is enough, we agree with the Youth Leaders it’s time for Babsy to go. And in the national interest, it needs to happen now.