Sports complexes to be ready by December - Sports Minister assures

The Minister for Youth and Sports has assured that all 10 multi-purpose sports complexes promised by the government would be completed by December, 2020.

The Sports Minister’s response comes after GhanaWeb reported that the Ministry of Youth and Sports is yet to complete 10 of the multi-purpose sports complexes it commenced in 2018 after expiration of deadlines.

Isaac Asiamah, during the sod cutting ceremonies of the multi-purpose Sports Complexes in 2018 emphatically assured Ghanaians that the facilities would be ready nine months after construction commences.

However speaking to Ghanaweb, Kofi Asare Brako (popularly known as Abatay), an aid to the Sports Minister, Isaac Asiamah, said that the construction of the Sporting facilities would be ready before the year 2020 ends.

Contrary to speculations that the facilities were being delayed due to financial constraints, the Minister’s spokesperson explained that, the delay in the construction of the facilities were rather due to additional upgrades being added to the facilities as well as the coronavirus pandemic which has hit the country.

“There were some changes being done to the designs so what it meant was that we had to restructure. So as we were building, we get a new idea then we add it to the plan. The coronavirus pandemic which has also hit the country has also accounted for the delays,” Abatey told Ghanaweb.

He added, “By the end of the year in December it will be ready as stated by the Minister” in his address at the meet the Press series.

He further disclosed that contractors were working around the clock to complete the sporting facilities which forms part of government’s efforts to improve the decline in sporting infrastructures in the country.

The sports complexes are being constructed in the Greater Accra, Volta, Eastern, Western, Ashanti, Brong-Ahafo, Central, Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions.

When completed the facilities will house football fields, tartan tracks, ICT Counselling centres, Entrepreneurial Development centre other sports facilities among other things.