SINCE assuming the reigns at the Ministry of Youth and Sports, Asokwa-West MP, Edward Osei Kwaku has led Ghana to two major competitions and returned disappointed.

The first was to Mali 2002 last February where Ghana’s Black Stars failed to win any laurels at the Africa Cup of Nations, knocked out at the quarter-finals.And the second was to the recently-ended Manchester Commonwealth Games where Ghana could only pick one medal — a bronze — thanks to the efforts of 20-year-old heptathlete, Margaret Simpson.

These two experiences must have been sobering to the Honourable Sports Minister to the extent that Manchester for instance has been “an eye opener”, as he himself graciously admitted on arrival back home last week.

The Minister was quoted to have said that the Manchester Games “have exposed and will prepare us to effectively perform better in subsequent games”, while attributing Ghana’s dismal performance at the Games to poor infrastructure at home.

Consequently, the Minister was reported to have said that his ministry would now focus on investing in infrastructure as well as planning well ahead of time to do better in future Games.

To these, we will say, amen. But seriously, do we have to suffer such embarrassments before it dawns on us that we need to improve on our sports infrastructure to enhance the competitiveness of our athletes?

We also think that it shouldn’t have taken a flop at Manchester for us to realise that exposure and advance planning are vital in competitive sports and view the Sports Minister’s apparent ignorance as rather surprising. Indeed, the failure by Ghana to pick a medal in boxing for the first time in the history of the Games after Brisbane 1982 was largely due to the inexperience of this generation of Black Bombers.

Just as the attendance at the Manchester Games has helped in exposing the Sports Minister to the nuances of such sporting events so he can now plan better for future ones, so too the boxing squad needed some international exposure worth the salt before embarking on the trip to Manchester. We were aware the opportunity was there for the Bombers to travel to Poland for exposure prior to the Games. But some how, this opportunity got bungled and the young boxers went to Manchester without any credible experience except that acquired fighting among themselves and against a bunch of hapless Beninois opponents.

It would be educative if an explanation is offered by the Ministry of Youth and Sports why the training trip to Poland by the boxers never came off.

Honestly, we are happy that the Honourable Minister has seen the light and if that is all it will take for him to turn Ghana Sports around then we pray the light never gets dimmed.