A National Sports Policy will by the end of the year (2023) be implemented to guide the management and development of sports in the country, the Minister for Youth and Sports, Mustapha Ussif, has said.
Speaking at the ministry’s Stakeholders’ Consultation Meeting on Draft National Sports Policy, the Minister said they would continue with engagements to ensure that a proper policy that would change the fortunes of sports in Ghana for the better was adopted this year.
“Ghana has been in dire need of a sports policy for ages and the absence of such policy is a dent on the rich history and journey of Ghana’s heroics and achievements in sports globally,” he stated.
“We are excited to come out with a draft and bring on board all stakeholders in sports to contribute their quota to the policy and have a common directive and objective to achieve the needed results,” he added.
The sports policy, he said, would complement government’s National Youth Policy launched last year by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, and give proper direction to the country’s approach to youth and sports development.
“With the calibre of stakeholders involved, I expect that they would enrich the draft document by bringing their expertise to bare and contribute to make it more resourceful for implementation,” he stated.
He urged the private sector and corporate entities to come on board to support sports development as the policy would ensure that their interests were served accordingly.
“Gone are the days, where we see sports as leisure. It is now a huge business that would require private sector to tap into the multi-million dollar sector as stipulated in the draft document,” he stressed.
Yesterday’s meeting, he asserted, was the first stage as they met various stakeholders including the Advisory Board, the National Sports Authority Board, the Sports Media, veteran sports administrators and other groups to ensure that everyone contributed to the policy development.
He urged all to bring on board their ideas while commending the Chief Director of the ministry, Alhaji Hafiz Adam, for putting together a team to draft the policy.
The team, headed by Dr Bello Bella Bitugu, had members including Mrs Juliana Addo Yobo, Mr Samuel Korsah, Mrs Cynthia Mettle-Nunoo, Mr Horen K. Quashigah and Mr Kwame Amponfi Jnr.
The rest were, Ms Philippina Frimpong, Mr Ignatius Elletey, Dr Austin Luguterah, Dr Ernest Koranteng and Ms Catherine Asare- Frimpong.
In his presentation, Dr Bitugu explained that the eight-chapter draft policy included introduction, content, theme and strategies towards achieving the key objectives.
He added that it also had clear direction of implementation, monitoring and evaluation, communication strategy and action plan.
According to the Sports Minister, a lot of work had gone into the document as they engaged the National Development Planning Committee to come out with a standard template for the policy.
He added that the policy was essential as sports had a huge role to play socially and economically and required policy guidelines.
“The policy would guide sports growth and must be within a regulation and inure to best practices globally,” he stated.
“We had to go through not less than 13 available policies, make adjustments and inputs, consultations and evaluations to come out with the current draft we subjected to review,” he stated.
The meeting saw various heads of federations, football administrators and experts in sports come together to make inputs into the draft policy.
BY MICHAEL D. ABAYATEYE
