The President of the Sports Writers Association of Ghana (SWAG), Ebo Quansah has appealed to firms, organisations and individuals with the means to aid Ghana Sports to pick it out of the doldrums it finds itself.

“We learnt that out of a total budget of 12 billion cedis presented for Ghana’s preparation and participation in the All African Games, Government has pledged only 6 billion cedis, way short on requirement. There is clear evidence that Ghana’s effective participation could be seriously undermined”, he said. The SWAG President said this last Monday when Western Union and its allied services donated a cheque of 36million cedis to SWAG. This was their contribution to facilitate the hosting of the 2002 edition of the SWAG’s Awards Night to be held tentatively on the -2nd of August 2003.

Western Union allied services are Global Access, Ecobank and Ghana Post. Western Union is one of the major money transferring companies in the country that help citizens abroad to remit monies to their relatives in Ghana without stress.

Quansah said that Ghana sport is passing through a difficult stage at the moment since all infrastructure, facilities and cash needed to promote quality sports are non-existent.

He said, “It is a shame that Ghana that pioneered sports on the West Coast of Africa has the worst facilities among our competitors. The state of the running tracks at both the Accra and Kumasi stadia is awful and there are suggestion that the national championships in athletics to select Ghana’s team for the All-Africa Games should be shifted to Togo, Lome”, he added.

He reiterated the Association’s earlier call to the President to bring sports promotion under his Special Initiatives programme to provide facilities for sports promotion.

Quansah said that the SWAG would like to appeal to the Government to reconsider its decision to remove the Sports Development Fund from the control of the Ministry of Youth and Sports and place it in a central pool at the Bank of Ghana. This is because the SWAG believes the exercise will harm Ghana sports a lot and create more problems than solutions.

Explaining this claim, he said: “In the first place, the budget for sports promotion is way below requirements. The institution of the Fund has enabled the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the National Sports Council (NSC) fund very important programmes without resorting to State expenditure. The way sports operate is such that it is not always possible to access funds from the Ministry of Finance especially for events that are communicated to the NSC and the Sports Ministry at short notices.”

The Country Manager of Western Union, Anthony Kemevor who presented the cheque on behalf of the company said Western Union has over the years been affiliated to sporting activities in the country but this gesture starts a closer relationship with the SWAG.

He said since most of their patrons are sportsmen or sports enthusiasts, the Union thought it prudent to donate the money towards the upcoming event and hoped the gesture was a way of endorsing SWAG’s contribution to the promotion of sports in the country.

Kemevor said the Union is supporting the hosting of the 2002 edition of the SWAG Awards Night because they wanted to be part of it and share it with all. “We hope our contribution will help develop sports in the country.”

The President of SWAG, Ebo Quansah who received the donation on behalf of the Association thanked Western Union for their kind gesture, saying that, this would go a long way to motivate the country’s sportsmen and women ahead of the All Africa Games which will take off in Abuja, Nigeria in October this year. “Our sportsmen and women look up to the SWAG for appreciation after striving very hard throughout the year to raise the flag of Ghana at international sports meetings”, he said.

He noted that once this union between the Western Union and the SWAG has started, it would continue to flourish over the years. He however called for more assistance from the Union and asked other corporate groups to come to the aid of the association to make the event a big success.

The SWAG President said this year; the association is planning a very big event to really motivate sportsmen and women in order to ginger the country’s contingents in the All Africa Games in Abuja to go the extra mile to bring glory to our dear country.