Commercialize all sporting facilities - Kojo Bonsu to National Sports Authority

Kojo Bonsu, the former Director-General of the National Sports Authority has made some recommendations that he believes, if implemented will lead to a cure of the perennial challenge of raising funds to maintain Ghana’s sporting facilities.

Speaking on GhanaWeb’s Lowdown program, Kojo Bonsu identified the key problem facing the NSA in their bid to generate revenue to keep the facilities in shape.

He noted that the over-reliance on funds from the government and failure to charge users of the facilities the right amount are the two factors standing in the way of the NSA.

He, therefore proposed a commercialization of the facilities with charges that correspond to the rate of maintaining the facilities.

The former mayor of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly argued that there must be a paradigm shift in the mindset of the managers of the facilities if any improvement relative to how sporting facilities are maintained is to be recorded.

“We have to commercialize it to be able to run it effectively. The government subventions don’t come so the leaders there must think commercially otherwise they will all rot. If you are doing a commercial venture, you have to charge fees that will be commensurate with those costs. I’m sure that is what they are not doing.

“If you rent out the stadium for GHC10,000 to somebody, the money won’t even be enough for you to use it for cleaning not to talk of maintaining the field. You have to charge the cost in a way you will be able to make a profit or strike even” he said.

Kojo Bonsu told GhanaWeb’s Daniel Oduro that during his time as NSA boss, he made commenced a process to dissuade the staff from always looking up to the government and focus more on marketing their products and facilities to companies and event organizers.

“I started training them on how to approach things commercially and how to look at businesses. I changed the idea so that we can look at things more commercially. I made sure everything was looked at commercially so that if the government doesn’t bring money, we’ll have money to run the authority,” he said.

The lack of maintenance culture in the sporting space has never been more apparent with some of Ghana’s foremost sporting facilities now rotting away.

The Essipong Sports Stadium which was one of four major stadiums used for the 2008 Africa Cup of Nations is in ruins despite a claim by Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta that renovations work on it were 90% complete.

A video of the Obuasi Len Clay stadium shown by Asempa FM on Wednesday, 14 June 2023 by Asempa FM shows the facility is in a deplorable state and requires immediate attention.



KPE