New Vehicles for Sports Council
A concern has been raised over a fleet of vehicles that the Belize Sports Council has acquired, and the appropriateness of this during challenging fiscal times. News Five approached the Director of the Sports Council, Ian Cal, who told News Five that the vehicles were absolutely needed. He says they will help expand sports across the country and give coordinators in the districts the means to move around to village schools and stadiums. Cal insists the vehicles do not come at any extra expense to the Government, since the payments are being deducted from the Council’s monthly subvention.
Ian Cal
Ian Cal, Director, National Sports Council
“The National Sports Council has been working on a strategic plan and under that strategic plan what we wanted to do was to ensure that we equip all districts with the necessary resources needed to get their job done. We have representation in all districts and for the first time we have in San Pedro, Independence and even Benque. So, we are covering the entire country at this point, so we have coordinators in all districts. We have staff in all the districts and what our intention is to ensure that they have the necessary resources they need to move around. One is mobility and the National Sports Council didn’t have any vehicles. When we came in we found five vehicles at the Marion Jones and four of them completely crashed, not working and one of them I currently have under repair. Hopefully that one comes out of repairs but then again, when that comes out that will be used by maintenance. We found it necessary to get new vehicles for all districts. I must say though, that this doesn’t cause any strain to the Government because this is coming out of the subvention that the Government gives the National Sports Council on a monthly basis. So, we get deducted for that every month. It’s an agreement that we made with Caribbean Motors. I must say that it was a good agreement because it was a zero down-payment agreement for a long-term period, for four years and the stamp duty and taxes were waived; all the procedures were followed; the tendering process was followed through Caribbean Motors. So, we followed all the process and we simply requested that through our subvention, which they give us anyway, that is deducted and that is paid for from there. But it’s not only vehicles, Marion. We’re equipping all the facilities with zero turn machines as well; we should be handing over next week for them to be able to maintain the facilities that we manage countrywide. We have to ensure the development of sports and sports has been pretty much on standstill. We have opened up non-contact sports and right now as we speak, we’re working on a policy for contact sports to start and one of those integral parts of that policy will be to ensure that everyone who participates in contact sports is vaccinated. So we’re preparing. We have been doing training with other coordinators; we have been outfitting, renovating our facilities. To ensure that whenever that go-ahead [is given] for sports to start, we have all the necessary resources we need, including sporting equipment which we are getting pretty soon to distribute countrywide to ensure that we don’t have any excuses for people to get the job done.”
Cal says that every month, a little over eleven thousand, four hundred dollars is deducted from the Council’s subvention and paid towards the acquisition of the vehicles.
