2020 budgeted sum exceeds previous years’ for sport, says Sport Minister Ramson Jr

By Jemima Holmes

The continuation of the Emergency Budget 2020 debates yesterday saw Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport, Charles Ramson Jr, making his presentation.
He spoke about the importance and quality of the sum budgeted for the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport, which has been allocated some $2.7B, of which $805.3M is going to sport.

The Minister explained that some of this money has already been spent, but there’s just over $1.2B left to be spent.
“That $805M, a good portion of that has already been spent. Now, you have to understand the budget is not what you see here, the money is for all of the months that have passed already. So, the allocation remaining, the budget covers the entire period. So, what’s there for us to spend is what’s remaining (for) three months,” he revealed.
Ramson disclosed, “The remaining three months’ sum is $1.2B for the three areas that I have. But Capital Works is not going to be a major part of any of the heads, and the reason for that is simple: The Ministry of Finance is not going to allow you to have any big projects, because there is a procurement process that needs to be undertaken when you have to do big spending.”
Minister Ramson Jr chided the former ministers who had control of the Culture, Youth and Sport portfolio for the lacklustre way in which the sector had been handled.
He explained: “They had two ministers in 5 years. One wanted to be the Minister of Health and one felt his ministry was a demotion to head the Ministry of Sport, Youth and Culture, and I would like everyone to know that I consider the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport as the most important Ministry in this country.”
Ramson Jr went on to share that the 2020 allocation exceeds that which had been presented by his predecessors by quite a few millions.
“And when I heard the criticisms for the Culture, Youth, and Sport budget, I would like the Honourable Member to hear what were the figures in 2015 from the APNU/AFC. It was $2.4B. For 2016, it was $2.3B; for 2017, it was $2.6B.
“The point that I’m making is that none of your encouragement and advocacy came when you were sitting in the seat in the Government,” the Minister argued.
While he was constrained by time in his presentation, Ramson Jr shared that there wasn’t much that was left out.
He said, “I would have liked to share the Ministry’s vision for all the sectors, but I think maybe we’ll be able to do that through our Facebook and our social media channels.”
Speaking exclusively with the Evening News, Ramson Jr, shed some light on the multipurpose facilities that President Irfaan Ali had announced last week.
“These multipurpose facilities are expected to be (of) international (standard). Each one is in the scale of millions of dollars, possibly billions of dollars. (They are) multipurpose in the sense that they’re going to cater to lots of sports. You’re going to have stands, big lighting; you know, full upgrade, something similar to what you’d see at the Guyana National Stadium.
(They would be) not as extravagant because, obviously, the National Stadium was a lot more expensive, but something similar in the sense that we’re going to scale it upwards to get international events,” he explained. While the COVID-19 pandemic has limited the amount of sport that would be hosted locally for the remainder of the year, the Minister disclosed that the Ministry’s social media platform would be used to engage the public.