'Sakawa' Rocks Taekwondo Association

The Ghana Taekwondo Association has of recent date been rocked by a seeming 'SAKAWA' scandal which like a festering wound is affecting the fortunes of the noble art of self defense affectionately called Taekwondo.

As a result of the nefarious activities of certain interest groups within the Sports Ministry and their cohorts in the Sports Council a good number of sports disciplines are saddled with a myriad of problems and Taekwondo has become the latest casualty.

It has been an age old practice for the Sports Ministry in consultation with other stakeholders to recommend selected personalities to the office of the president for confirmation as executive officers who steer the affairs of the Taekwondo Association. The Muntaka Mubarak administration is said to have submitted such a list of personalities for the perusal of the office of the president, however when confirmation eventually came to the public domain it was realized that something magical had occurred as the original list submitted to the castle had been substituted with an entirely different one thus satisfying the parochial interest of the said 'SAKAWA' group. An act which is akin to the Mallam Issah luggage swapping debacle that earned him a jail term.

When this reporter contacted a close aid of the former Sports Minister over the former subject matter he said he was privy to the original list of persons submitted to the corridors of power and expressed shock at the scandalous substitution.

In a related development, members of the Ghana Taekwondo Association have expressed serious reservations about the matter and female members of the association have threatened to dance naked on the streets of the capital city, alongside their male counterparts if the membership of the present executive is allowed to remain as it is. They have therefore called for the matter to be addressed immediately.

The aggrieved members of the association who are up in arms contend that the current chairman of the association has largely been ineffective throughout the eight years that he had served the association and this can be deduced from the fact that apart from the Korean Cup which is sponsored annually by the Korean Ambassador to Ghana no national Taekwondo event has taken place for the past four years, thus stifling the initiative of young budding stars and dashing their hopes to nothingness.

They said they returned from Algiers with only a bronze medal to show as a result of the ineffectiveness of the chairman.

The bewildered senior members of the association said what really broke the camel's back was the fact that a Korean national has been made the vice chairman of the association to the chagrin of the numerous competent Ghanaians who are capable of delivering the goods.