‘Selling themselves short’

EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN of Supreme Ventures Limited (SVL), Gary Peart, contends that many of the island’s sporting bodies are missing tremendous opportunities to be better sponsored by corporate Jamaica because of a lack of proper financial accountability.

On Friday, Peart, during the announcement SVL’s five-year $75 million partnership with Jamaica Olympic Association (JOA), lauded their recordkeeping and emphasised it was one of the main reasons for SVL’s continuation of the agreement.

In a subsequent interview, Peart lamented the lack of accountability from many of Jamaica’s sports associations and opined that this hinders their progress.

“Without a doubt, some sporting bodies are selling themselves short. Several sporting organisations can’t produce a statement and don’t think it is important. What they are missing is that with those things, they would get significantly more money,” Peart said.

“My primary world is the financial world. The more transparent they are about their finances, the more benefits they will get, so that’s how we run the financial world, and I think sporting federations should adopt that policy.

“They should have people who are fit and proper, qualified and have the finances available for all to see,” he argued.

According to the Jamaica Stock Exchange website, Peart was elected to SVL’s board in 2017 before becoming chairman in 2019 and was elevated to executive chairman one year later. He is also the chief executive officer of Mayberry Investments and serves on the board of several of the island’s top corporate companies.

PSYCHOLOGICAL BOOST

He outlined that corporate Jamaica would get psychological boosts from sporting bodies seeking monetary assistance that provide financial statements, which he argued indicates that these organisations are in charge of their operations and know and understand what they are doing.

“In life, there is accountability, but I find that people will call and want some sponsorship, but when we ask, ‘What have you done with it’, it’s usually very lacking. One of the first things that turns us off from giving the right amount of sponsorship is that the federations don’t necessarily have their financial statements,” he said.

“I find from time to time that when somebody approaches me with proper financials, if I wanted to give them a dollar, I am more inclined to gift them 10, 20 or 30 because, in my organisation, we measure everything we do, so if they can’t measure their finances, how can they measure the results to then say to me this is the return that I got from the sponsorship?

“Everything we do in life, even as individuals, we are supposed to be registered taxpayers and make the filing every year, so as a sporting federation, it goes without saying that they should have that in place.

“If they don’t, it’s sending the signal that the body is in disarray, not properly managed, so if it’s not properly managed, how do I know that my sponsorship money is going to the objective and it might not be syphoned off somewhere else.”

Meanwhile, according to the president of the JOA, Christopher Samuda, his body is seeking to help the island’s sporting organisations in their management by providing administrative programmes and courses.

Samuda noted that many sports organisations are having difficulties managing their operations and are not necessarily wilfully lacking financial accountability.

“I won’t say that they are not adhering, but they have challenges because of a lack of resources, so what we at the JOA are doing is understanding their needs, and we are trying to assist them with their needs by providing the framework to bolster financial competencies and expertise,” Samuda said.

job.nelson@gleanerjm.com