Gov’t investing in its infrastructure
THE Government of Barbados is committed to making significant investments in infrastructure that will make this country competitive and relevant to the rest of the world.
Minister of Culture, Sports and Youth, Stephen Lashley, said that the Garfield Sobers Gymnasium is one such building of focus.
“The Wildey Gymnasium is a building that has not really received any attention from the time that it was built some 20 years ago. This has been a major problem affecting the infrastructure development of Barbados, where not much attention has been paid to refreshing and improving our infrastructure,” he told Democratic Labour Party (DLP) supporters gathered for the Mid-Year Conference, on Saturday.
The island’s sole multi-purpose sports facility is currently undergoing several renovations and refurbishments through the bilateral agreements between Barbados and the People’s Republic of China. He revealed that the work, which carries a price tag of $19 million, is estimated to be completed by July/August, this year.
“To attract sports tourism in a major way, we need to have a facility that is of international standing. The pre-existing gym floor could not be used by any of the major sporting disciplines,” he indicated.
“Under this renovation project, the entire floor of the gymnasium will be transformed into a major international quality floor and of course, we would be able to have international basketball – major international sports in a way that can drive sports tourism to new frontiers never seen before in Barbados… That translates to foreign inflows of capital, investor opportunities and earning of foreign exchange.
“The gymnasium of course will be improved in a manner that will reduce its overall maintenance costs. The cost of electricity through the provision of a photovoltaic system will mean that we can offer reduced and more competitive rates. Not only to those persons involved in the sporting disciplines, but to all the players, particularly those involved in promoting major shows and activities,” he told the gathering at Queen’s College.
The National Stadium
Lashley also disclosed that his Ministry is now seeking to source funding to carry out redevelopment of the National Stadium.
“The National Stadium is being called a ‘national disgrace’, but the reality is that not much has happened to it over the past 30 years. A stadium was built, but in relation to the need to upgrade the National Stadium, to bring it into the 21st century as a modern international arena upon which we could place emphasis on major opportunities for sports tourism, apparently has been lost. Certainly under the Barbados Labour Party, nothing was done to it,” he observed.
“We had to come in and the first thing we recognised was that you could not continue to expose our athletes to a sub-graded track and therefore, the Cabinet very quickly approved the funding of approximately $3 million to lay an international quality Mondo track … but that was only the first phase of the need to improve the infrastructure at the National Stadium… The engineer’s reports have told the tale of a plant that has been totally and systemically ignored. It is really a tragedy because again, it represents one of the key areas of infrastructure that we have to now focus our attention on, and we are very committed to it.
“We cannot transform sports in Barbados into a major economic sector without placing at the disposal of our young talents, the facilities that would drive them into those areas of excellence and accomplishments,” he stressed.
“So, we are searching for the funding opportunities and we are having some very important discussions with the Ministry of Finance in that regard. And once the funding is sourced, we will start the process of the redevelopment of the National Stadium.”
Queen’s Park
Observing the neglect of the buildings at Queen’s Park, particularly the Daphne Joseph Hackett Theatre, the Culture Minister admitted that many creatives have personally expressed to him their dismay about the state of that facility.
He was therefore pleased to report that work on that Queen’s Park theatre has started, and is expected to be completed for CARIFESTA, which takes place in Barbados August 17 to 27, 2017.
“The investment is approximately $6 million and there has been quite a bit of discussion as to why the Government, in tight fiscal times, should invest $6 million in CARIFESTA… I want to say that every investment must be weighed alongside the benefits. We are expecting in Barbados approximately 3 000 artists and that doesn’t include any of the visitors that we expect to come to follow the events… We believe that the economic impact of CARIFESTA will by and large significantly outstrip the investment that we are placing at the doorstep of this festival,” he said. (TL)