Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture, the Hon. Mario Bowleg responded to the findings of a report by the Auditor General on the Jubilee Games and CARIFTA events tabled in the House of Assembly. The reports revealed that the cost of the events held in 2023 overran by approximately $7 million.
Bowleg responded to the revelations in the report saying a conversation should have been had between Ministry officials and the Auditor General before the release of the report. He went further explaining, “if we use Bahamas Games for example, preparations started from 2021. We met a budget in place of $3.5 million to execute those games. We realize that that was not sufficient. We went and got Cabinet approval to increase the budget to some $7 million. We would have then met in 2021-22 a budget line in that item, 2022-23 a budget line in that item. So therefore, in the inspection of the auditors, yes there was a budget incline that would have been less than the amount needed to execute the Games but once Cabinet would have approved the amount to execute the Games we then would have gone back to the Ministry of Finance in the Cabinet conclusion which would have indicate Finance would have provide the funding necessary to execute these games. And so, the funding was appropriately requested and approved and executed for these games.”
The Minister also expressed his dissatisfaction with the audited reports. In addition to the cost overruns, the report also revealed deficiencies is operations. The findings of the report included that the 2023 CARIFTA Games Company Ltd. was not registered correctly, the Local Organizing Committee did not retain corroborating evidence for value in kind donations, breach in contract agreements and stipulations related to employees, vendors and sponsorship agreements and hiring policies and procedures were circumvented.
