The in­au­gur­al Caribbean Games, planned for Ju­ly 13-19, 2009, in Trinidad and To­ba­go, were can­celled just weeks be­fore the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny due to the H1N1 virus out­break. Over 1,000 ath­letes from 26 Caribbean na­tions were ex­pect­ed to com­pete.

​The his­toric mul­ti-sport event, or­gan­ised by the Caribbean As­so­ci­a­tion of Na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tees (CANOC), was to be host­ed by the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) and the gov­ern­ment of T&T. The Games were to com­prise sports such as aquat­ics, box­ing, net­ball, ten­nis, track and field, and vol­ley­ball.

​Den­nise Dem­ming, chair of the Lo­cal Or­gan­is­ing Com­mit­tee, wrote in a Jan­u­ary 22, 2022, Wired868 op-ed that the Caribbean Games 2009 (CG09) was al­leged­ly can­celled be­cause of the H1N1 virus and con­tin­ues to be an un­re­solved is­sue, with TT $10 mil­lion sit­ting in a bank ac­count await­ing res­o­lu­tion.

"By the time I was ap­point­ed chair of the in­au­gur­al CG09, the con­cept was ful­ly de­vel­oped, the event was in po­si­tion to kick off the qua­dren­ni­al re­gion­al sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties lead­ing up to the Olympic Games. The dream was for Caribbean na­tion­als to see our sons and daugh­ters per­form in per­son be­fore mov­ing on to the in­ter­na­tion­al stage at the Olympics. Price Wa­ter­house Coop­ers (PWC) was ap­point­ed by Board res­o­lu­tion in April 2012."

​While Dem­ming has cham­pi­oned the res­o­lu­tion of this mat­ter with un­wa­ver­ing ded­i­ca­tion by writ­ing let­ters, I was prob­a­bly too qui­et in my own ef­forts, choos­ing in­stead to make phone calls to PWC and the Min­istry of Fi­nance.

​Four gov­ern­ments have changed since 2009. While there are as­pects of this mat­ter that aren't sim­ple, the bot­tom line is that 17 years lat­er, the Caribbean Games 2009 re­mains un­re­solved. On this point, there can be no ar­gu­ment with Dem­ming: it has tak­en too long. Every time I have spo­ken with PWC, I have been told the mat­ter was mov­ing be­tween the Min­istry of Sport and the Min­istry of Fi­nance. PWC main­tains it needs clear di­rec­tion from the rel­e­vant min­istry.

​Ten mil­lion dol­lars ($10,000,000) is a lot of mon­ey by any stretch of the imag­i­na­tion. It is a trav­es­ty that it has tak­en this long to re­solve. Grant­ed, there are le­gal as­pects and pol­i­cy mat­ters that have to be worked through. How­ev­er, as Dem­ming point­ed out, this is a mat­ter that ought to be re­solved, and should have been a long time ago.

​It al­so speaks to what hap­pens when gos­sip, lies, half-truths, and in­nu­en­dos take prece­dence over facts and truth.

​Over the years, I per­son­al­ly have been told dif­fer­ent ver­sions of "the re­al sto­ry" be­hind the can­cel­la­tion of the Games. I have heard whis­pers of al­leged cor­rup­tion, malfea­sance, etc. I don't know any­thing about those al­le­ga­tions or sus­pi­cions. There are those who may well say I ought to know and that I am on­ly play­ing dumb, but I re­al­ly am not aware. I was in no con­ver­sa­tion where any vari­a­tion of cor­rup­tion was ne­go­ti­at­ed or agreed.

T&T is a space that can make you ques­tion your san­i­ty. There are those who will swear un­der oath that they have the re­al sto­ry and the truth, when what they have is noth­ing that is even close to the truth.

​This much I do know: yes­ter­day (Ju­ly 13) marked 17 years. Yes, 17 years ago, the in­au­gur­al Caribbean Games was sup­posed to take place. It didn't, and since then, TT $10 mil­lion has been sit­ting in a bank ac­count (hope­ful­ly earn­ing in­ter­est com­pound­ed) await­ing de­ci­sions to be tak­en be­tween the liq­uida­tor, PWC, the Min­istry of Sport, and the Min­istry of Fi­nance.

Ed­i­tor’s note: The views ex­pressed in the pre­ced­ing ar­ti­cle are sole­ly those of the au­thor and do not re­flect the views of any or­gan­i­sa­tion in which he is a stake­hold­er.