We Did So Much With Less Funding For Underfunded Sports – Ben Nunoo-Mensah
Former President of Ghana Weightlifting Federation, now Ghana Olympic Committee (GOC), Ben Nunoo-Mensah has shared his experience and some achievements the GOC have had during his tenure.
In an interview, he said ” Personally, I think that we have been able to do something close to eighty percent of what we are set out to do. The most significant of it is opening the GOC up. Now every federation feels they are part of GOC unlike what existed in the past, and that has brought a lot of strength and unity in the GOC”.
He added that one thing they have also done is to gain the media attention for the so-called least financed Sports.
Nunoo-Mensah further explained, ” The other good thing we have done in the last four years is to support the National Federations financially. Whatever little we get from IOC, we make sure we give funding for the National Federations and the Athletes”.
“We are having about 12 athletes on scholarships worth 40,000 Dollars per athlete to about 15,000 Dollars. These are the few significance we’ve been able to bring to the GOC”.
When asked about some Federations always asking for funds to be able to partake in tournaments, he answered, ” People know and see that it is okay when the Black Stars are going to play a match and the ministry would fund the team. When the Black Stars go out to face Africa, it is the ministry that funds the team”.
” There are a lot of national teams, we have Black Cranes for Weightlifting and the Golden Rockets Hockey Team which are the responsibility of the ministry. But when those disciplines are going out to defend the flag of Ghana, then we have the challenge of no money from the ministry.
That is very disturbing, that is how come the GOC will always go out of its way to help even though it is not our core mandate to fund the National Teams” he emphasized.
He stressed that, in order to enhance our games in various disciplines, we need to put a lot of resources into Primary and JHS competitions at the district level. And in tertiary, we need to put funding into GUSSA games.
“We identify the talents at the primary school level, nurture them through the Junior High, and by the time they get to the university, they’ve become top national team athletes”.
“But once the secondary school system was distracted, we haven’t thought outside the box to see how we can now put up programs to get the talents that we are losing because they don’t have the opportunity to be in the secondary school for seven years. I think that is something we should be looking at”, he explained.
Having said all these, Ben Nunoo also disclosed that their biggest challenge with the Olympic Africa Project Sports Complex is the ownership of the land which has to do with the certificate of the land.
By: Clement Annor | Active TV Follow on Twitter @activetvgh
