The need to increase the national sports budget

A GNA Feature by Richard Avornyotse

Accra, Nov 5, GNA 96 In just a few days, the national budget will be announced by the Minister of Finance to give Ghanaians an idea of how the national treasury has allocated resources to the various sectors based on their needs and demands.

As has always been the case, some ministries would receive far more allocations than others. Some of the ministries, which get fatter allocations, are believed to have more pecuniary obligations than those, which may have some limitations in their allotment.

Being a sports writer, my relations with the key players in the sector responsible for sports informs me that the sector is one of those which usually run out of funds before the end of the second quarter. There are always cries from the Ministry and its main affiliate, the National Sports Council (NSC) about the lack of funds to prosecute their programmes.

Often times, some of the national sports association abandon their agenda, which had been planned for the year to facilitate development of one discipline or the other due to lack of funds, thus denying the youth the opportunity to measure their standards after burning a lot of calories at training in anticipation of competition. More regrettably is the uncertainty, which now surrounds the =93resurrected=94 National Sports Festival, which has numerous benefits to the country in terms of national integration and orientation, aside, providing a platform for our youth to engage in healthy competitions with each other.

Whereas sports has copious advantages to the nation, our planners have failed to identify such advantages and still treat it as a leisure, offering respite to fatigued minds and bodies at weekends. At best, all we care about is the number of gold medals we mine at international competitions, while we fail to enumerate the off stage benefits that the nation derives from sports.

Recreational facilities are important prerequisites of every community and where there are no such provisions, the inhabitants are denied access to healthy living, which reduces money spent on treating aliments, as an active body is less prone to illness than an inactive person.

Sports have the penchant to clean the streets of the youth who would otherwise have taken to crime. Such young boys and girls would find solace in the gyms and parks, as they enjoy some games with their peers and aspire to pursue careers in some of the disciplines. Brazilian footballers earn billions of dollars, which they remit home and such deposits cushion the national economy to some extent. Such footballers mastered their acts from recreational facilities and indeed football parks in the communities where they grew up.

The recent clamour of our premier clubs for venues to honour their matches as the result of the renovation work going on at the national stadia in Accra and Kumasi is an indictment on our sports administrators, who over the years had failed to provided pitches and courts across the country.

May be the intent was there but the money was not there to undertake such ventures. Or may be, they just did not see the need for such projects.

Even where such facilities existed, in some cases they were left uncared for thus allowing encroachers to 93steal=94 them for residential purposes.

However, the good news is that the status quo is being reshaped by a new lease of life at the Ministry of Education, Science and Sports, with the sports segment of the Ministry placing high on its agenda, the provision of playing fields and multi purpose courts across the nation. Last week, the Deputy Minister in charge of Sports, Mr Osei Bonsu Amoah achieved a landmark result when he announced that the Ministry had completed fencing over 60 parks across the nation from its meager resources.

Supporting his claim with video evidence on the completed parks, the Deputy Minister sounded determined to go the extra mile when he said the Ministry would secure many more as soon the resources were available and provide many more parks so as to present the youth with the enticement to take to sports.

Having shown the will to address an issue that had been neglected over the years, an issue of such great consequences to the development of our sports, an issue that would thin the health budget, an issue that could minimize crime in our cities and towns, there is the need to call for more financial support for the Sports Sector.

A little bit more of the national cake to the Sports Sector to facilitate the provision of parks and courts among other things will be in the overall interest of most Ghanaians.

There is no need for the National Sports Festival to remain in abeyance, while frantic efforts are being made to aid national integration and orientation. The Festival must be factored into the national budget so that it becomes an annual certainty, without any doubts at all about its organization.

Just a little bit more of the national cake for the Sports Sector will address the long-standing issue of the provision of infrastructure and equipment.

Sports thrive on investment and it is time to enable the Ministry to put its hands to the wheels. Just a little bit more will do. Keep shooting!