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University for Sports Development is the target for a Ghana hosting the 2023 African Games, says Akufo-Addo

President Akufo-Addo says the ultimate target of his government is to use the 2023 African Games to establish a specialist sports development university

President Akufo-Addo says the ultimate target of his government through the opportunity given to Ghana to host the 2023 African Games is to establish a University for Sports Development in the country using the facilities that will be built for the Games.

The president made this announcement when he addressed the newly inaugurated nine-member Local Organising Committee (LOC) for the 2023 African Games at Jubilee House in Accra yesterday (12 October 2020).

“It is the vision of government for the purpose of sustainability to convert the Olympic sports facilities to be used for the 13th African Games into a university specialising in sports development,” President Akufo-Addo said.

“In anticipation of this, the Olympic stadium complex will have an administration block, hostel facilities, bungalows for senior officials, lecture and research facilities and equipment.”

The government has secured a parcel of land that will be used for the proposed sports complex and, subsequently, a higher education institute, the president said. The complex, he added, will have a 50,000-capacity Olympics stadium complex, multipurpose halls for all indoor sports, aquatic centres for swimming, and tennis courts.

The president poses with members of the 2023 African Games Local Organising Committee

Exhorts LOC

Addressing the LOC, President Akufo-Addo charged the members to bring their diverse backgrounds in sports administration, in Ghana and abroad, to bear on their new responsibility.

“I congratulate members of the LOC on whose shoulders lies the responsibility to organise the 2023 African Games in Ghana.

“I have no doubt that they can organise and produce one of the best African Games competitions in the history of the Games and help the country to regain her pride of place among the elite sporting nations in Africa,” the president said.

Response of chairman

In his response to the ambitions set out by the president, Kwaku Ofosu-Asare, the LOC chairman, on behalf of his colleague committee members, said that Ghana has had to wait for 55 years to take her turn to host the African Games.

He declared that, to realise Ghana’s plans for the Games, they will ensure that “the sporting facilities and infrastructure to be built will enhance the growth of the various sporting disciplines in Ghana and that the facilities that would be built will form the foundation of Ghana’s University for Sports and Development”.

Members of the LOC

The Local Organising Committee has Kwaku Ofosu-Asare as its chairman.

The other members are Emmanuel Owusu-Ansah, a former secretary to the 2016 NPP Transitional Team on Youth and Sports and the current technical advisor on sports at the Ministry of Youth and Sports; Reks Brobby, a former Olympian and an accomplished sports events organiser; Beatrice Dwumfour Williams, a clinical psychologist; Dan Kwaku Yeboah, sports journalist; Ahmed Osumanu, a communications consultant at the Ministry of Youth and Sports; Ben Nunoo Mensah, president of the Ghana Olympic Committee; Eva Okyere, a lawyer; and Joyce Datsa, a sports administrator.

Click on the link below to listen to President Akufo-Addo.

 

Wilberforce Asare / Asaase Radio

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