“It is not too long ago when the Board Chairman travelled to China as part of his one-man project of re-branding the National Sports Council. Without any authorization, Kojo Bonsu returned home and submitted a bill of GH¢58,000.
The NSC Board Chairman has on a number of occasions usurped the powers of the Chief Executive of the National Sports Council. In the events leading to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, Kojo Bonsu negotiated on behalf of the Sports Council and signed contracts as if he was the Chief Executive.”
Yesterday, Clement Kofi Humado went before television cameras at Parliament House in
Accra, and was grilled by members of the Appointment Committee of the House. The President has assigned him to take charge of Youth and Sports and MPs took him through the normal microscope to ascertain his ability to assume duty as the fourth Sports Minister to take charge of the portfolio since President John Evans Atta Mills moved to the Castle instead of the Jubilee House on January 7, 2009.
The rate at which sports Ministers are being appointed and removed, the Ministry might end up with a basketball team of former Ministers by the time Tawiah finds Atta, and get the message home that changing Ministers would not help, with the promotion of sports in this country.
As a Member of Parliament for Anlo, Mr. Humado is very unlikely to be refused by his colleagues. It is a matter of routine that he was taken through the process. The new kid on the block is all set to be unveiled as the fourth Minister to take charge of sports in two years.
Before his colleagues on the Appointment Committee, Mr. Humado said he had studied the Supreme Military Council Decree 54, which still governs sports promotion in the country, and come to the realization that it is at variance with the directive of the International Olympic Committee, as enshrined in the Olympic Charter.
As the immediate past President of the Sports Writers Association of Ghana, I would like to urge the new Minister to work hard to ensure that the new Sports Bill reaches Parliament for it to be discussed and approved. We cannot continue to promote sports, as if the various disciplines are still organized on amateur basis, and under the firm thumb of the Government.
The immediate challenge facing the new Minister is how to get the IOC to lift the indefinite ban on this country. It is shameful that Ghana has been sidelined from all Olympic sports at a time Prof. John Evans Atta Mills, a former Board Chairman of the National Sports Council and an ex-First Vice-Chairman of the Ghana Olympic Committee sits at Government House, as Head of State of this Republic.
What is worrying is that we courted this ban needlessly. When officials of the National Sports Council talk as if the IOC unilaterally placed a ban without proper justification, it is has everything to do with sour grapes. We visited the ban on ourselves with our eyes wide open.
When my own sister, Ms Akua Sena Dansua was appointed Minister of Sports, I wrote to state that she could not withstand the various mafia groupings that have come to surround sports promotion in the Atta Mills administration. There are a number of officials of the ruling National Democratic Congress who are peeved, apparently because the President had not considered them to occupy the sports Ministry.
I can state with all the authority under my command, as former President of SWAG, with deep knowledge of the movers of sports in this country, that there are a number of leading sports personalities seeking protection under the umbrella, who feel that they should be obeyed. Some hold on to the notion that because of their connection to the nation’s power house, they should be allowed to lay the ground rules in sports promotion.
I am by this article, offering the new Sports Minister a free consultancy. If he hopes to succeed, he has to be wary of certain personalities hiding under the umbrella to undermine authority in sports promotion. I have no qualms that someone like Kojo Bonsu, Board Chairman of the NSC is one of the major source of conflict in sports at the moment. Since he was appointed as Board Chairman, he is behaving as if he is bigger than the Minister of Sports.
When he converted an apartment at the Ohene Djan Stadium in Accra into an office block, for use by himself, former Minister of Sports Ms Akua Sena Dansua was asked by no mean a person than the President of the Republic, to ask him to quit the office. He refused.
It is not too long ago when the Board Chairman travelled to China as part of his one-man project of re-branding the National Sports Council. Without any authorization, Kojo Bonsu returned home and submitted a bill of GH¢58,000.
The NSC Board Chairman has on a number of occasions usurped the powers of the Chief Executive of the National Sports Council. In the events leading to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, Kojo Bonsu negotiated on behalf of the Sports Council and signed contracts as if he was the Chief Executive.
The infamous case of his son, Michael Bonsu, who allegedly introduced the National Sports Council to South African institutions and organizations, in respect of accommodation for the supporters of the Black Stars who went to the Rainbow nation, is a reference point.
Kojo Bonsu has also been fingered in the rumpus that nearly courted a ban from the Federation Internationale de Football Association. It was Kojo Bonsu who started it all, with the circulation of a circular in which he falsely claimed that the Kwesi-Nyantakyi-led Ghana Football Association was put in office by the Kufuor regime and, therefore, the Atta-Mills administration ought to press for the formation of the Public Interest Committee, with three members drawn from football enthusiasts seeking protection under the umbrella.
Kojo Bonsu is not the only official of the NDC whose activity has brought this nation into disrepute in the international comity of sporting nations. There is Kwadwo Twum-Boafo, officially designated as Chief Executive of the Free Zones Board. Twum-Boafo has been playing the role of a hatchet man of the regime on the airwaves. But that is not what the new Minister should lose sleep over.
Some leading officials of the Ghana Football Association believe that the many problems officialdom placed in the way of football administration, which saw the world government body on football issuing stern warnings to the Government of Ghana not to interfere with the administration of the game, could be traced to the machinations of Mr. Twum-Boafo.
If the Minister is unaware, the events leading to the ban by the IOC began with Nii Lante Vanderpuije. It was the Presidential aide who destroyed the attendance sheets and nomination forms to pave the way for the election of Prof. Francis Dodoo, as a rival of B.T. Baba as President of the Ghana Olympic Committee, which started all the rumpus.
Some one like Kobina Ade Coker, Chairman of the Greater Accra Regional branch of the NDC and others, hiding behind the umbrella have in one way or the other undermined sports promotion in Ghana, using their political weights.
As Mr. Humado prepares to assume office, he will do well to reflect on why the IOC banned Ghana and to work towards the ban being lifted. I also urge him to do well to stay away from the day to day administration of sports in the country.
He should concern himself with the policy guidelines. Last week, Vice-President John Dramani Mahama joined 20 Presidents of Football Associations from Africa to inaugurate FIFA Goal Three Project in the country.
One assurance he gave, that the new Minister must keep reminding the authorities at the Castle about, is that Government would no longer interfere in sports promotion. That means the Ghana Football Association should be left on its own.
It also means that the constant blackmailing of some officials of the FA, particularly Kwesi Nyantakyi and Randy Abbey, by some NDC officials with sporting credentials, would cease. It should also translate into getting the Economic and Organized Crime Office off the back of the Ghana Football Association and sponsors of football in Ghana.
Last July, when the Black Stars returned from South Africa, after reaching the quarter-finals of the World Cup, the team earned $11 million from FIFA. Under normal circumstances, the GFA should have kept the money for football development.
Whether by accident or design, the Government of Ghana got hold of the cheque, which was deposited at the Ministry of Finance. That money is not meant to support the budget of the state. It is money to ensure that football has the equipment and infrastructure to move the game forward.
This writer is urging the new Sports Minister to ensure that the money is given back to its rightful owners. FIFA is clear. Money from the world governing body on football is meant for the association and not the national treasury.
Mr. Humado is welcome into the minefield of sports promotion in Ghana. It is a very volatile area. If he uses his head, he will succeed. On the other hand, if he tends to apply more might than diplomacy, he would end up as a footnote of sports promotion, and add to the statistics of the many men and a woman who tried to lead sports from the front, but failed.
Welcome to the hot spot, Mr. Gentleman!
Source: Ebo Quansah/The Chronicle