NSC in dire need of qualified personnel

The National Sports Council (NSC) is in dire need of qualified personnel to fill vacancies in the regions.

Colonel George Brock, Chief Executive of the NSC said the council does not have "the right people in the right quarters" and the trend negates sport development at the grassroots. In an interview with GNA Sports, the Chief Executive said the NSC would like to have a sports development officer in every district capital to identify local talents for grooming, but there are no experts to hire.

He said for sports to make a giant leap forward and bring the kind of results Ghanaians desire, there should be a nation wide talent hunt and those discovered must be given the right facilities and equipment to train and flourish.

Colonel Brock said unfortunately, most of those who graduate from the Winneba Sports College are teachers who go back to the Ghana Education Service (GES) because of better remuneration. He said the NSC is a government funded unit and can only pay what pertains in the public sector.

The Chief Executive said the responsibilities of sport graduates with the NSC are more challenging because each one of them has to account for the number of talents they discover in specific disciplines each year. He said the rigours of NSC development officers' work and the public scrutiny, they face also throw off a lot sports graduates, who prefer to remain anonymous with the GES.

Colonel Brock said despite government's decision to offset any money a corporate organisation commits to sports development against its tax liability, many big companies still decline to sponsor sports. He called on the business community to provide sports facilities in their areas of operation as their social responsibility function in order to get a reservoir of healthy people to work for them and to serve as a grooming ground for future national stars.