The PM should lead by example

The history of sport in the Caribbean reveals the startling reality that the region has become known internationally more as a result of its athletes on the field of play than of its political leaders or any other single grouping.
Perhaps the single biggest tragedy is that the political leadership of the Caribbean are yet to come to the realisation of the important role that sport plays in the development of a people – the peoples of the Caribbean. It is this reason that seemingly hinders the regional integration process.
Politicians are prone to giving speeches and in the process make references to what they perceive to be important issues to the masses whom they govern but in practice do very little to allow themselves to be informed by those very masses in terms of their own legitimate needs.
More often than not in the world of sports as in everything else at the national level in the Caribbean political leaders operate on their own assumptions of the needs of the masses. Thereby hangs a tale.

Missing the boat with cricket
There is every reason to believe that the Caricom Heads of Government have all missed the boat on the importance of sport to the region when they took the decision to establish a Cricket Committee. It is unfortunate that the stubbornness of the Heads, much like the leadership of the WICB has led them to retain the Cricket Committee subsequent to the political demise of Grenada’s Keith Mitchell in the last general elections held in that country. The Committee is now under Antigua and Barbuda’s Baldwin Spencer. In a sense it really does not matter under which Prime Minister the Cricket Committee of Caricom is placed. There is one thing that is certain and that is the Heads have made a grand faux pas in their insistence that cricket is where they should place emphasis.
The success of the Caribbean at the recently concluded Beijing Olympics seems not to have taught the regional political leaders anything about the course of action they should pursue in respect of the location of sport in the general developmental thrust of the Caribbean.