Our World Cup Legacy

The Cricket World Cup 2007 (CWC2007), for all intents and purposes has been completed in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Never mind the fact that we are to stay as a standby venue until the conclusion of the entire programme. We are still essentially out of it. We have done our part. We are finished.

Kaput!What have we got? Legacy!Since the entire region’s Local Organising Committees (LOC) for the CWC2007 have seen it fit to hold fast to the latest buzz word, legacy, it seems important that we spend some more time addressing the legacy that we have left to successive generations of Vincentians and indeed the Caribbean peoples.

Facilities
In every country involved in CWC2007 we have built some major facilities and done considerable work on the nation’s infrastructure. In some instances the populace have stood in awe wondering much like Alice in Wonderland, whether the political directorates have suddenly gone mad.
Everywhere the politicians have engaged themselves in some heady expenditures, many seeming not to have understood beforehand what they were getting themselves into and certainly, for the most part, without any clear determination of future usage to the benefit of the masses and to justify the expenditures.
Many have taken the liberty to pay for the sports infrastructure from the public purse without due consultation.
In a period of consultative democracy and heavy emphasis on sports tourism one would have expected that there would have been full involvement of the national sports fraternity, at the very least.
No such luck, especially here in St Vincent and the Grenadines.