Sports Ministry owes me $11,500 - Powerlifter Charles Nattey

Powerlifter Charles Nattey who represented Ghana at the Paralympic Games in Brazil last year is pleading with the government to pay him his $11,500 which was money he used in pre-financing himself to the Paralympic Games in Rio last year.

In an interview with The Finder, he indicated that before the games they were told to finance the qualification games and the Association made a promise to pay them back if they were able to qualify and represent the nation in Rio.

He said, “I am entitled to $11,500 from the government which is money I spent for the qualifiers and the pre-camping in the USA for three weeks.

“We financed ourselves during the qualifiers and we were able to qualify for Rio. On our trip to Rio, we financed it ourselves. I even credited my ticket and the airlines are chasing me to make payment. The Ministry hasn’t paid me yet to pay all those I owe”.

“When we came back from Rio and we demanded for our money, we went to the Ministry of Youth and Sports then headed by Honourable Nii Lante Vanderpuye who told us that the monies due us have been given to our Associations, we followed back to our Associations and we were told there was no money”.

“Now we don’t know where the money. We are told it had been approved but we don’t know who has our money. We feel we are not been treated well because it looks as if the Ministry is against we the disabled. If the Black Queens were paid their bonuses why are we denied ours?” he queried.

Charles Nattey and two other Paralympic Athletes represented Ghana in the Paralympic Games in Rio last year and they are yet to receive their bonuses.

It will be recalled that the former Sports Minister, Nii Lante Vanderpuye, told the media that he had instructed the GFA to invite only locally-based players for the Ghana-Rwanda AFCON 2017 qualifier since the team had already secured qualification.

The rationale at the time was that monies that were supposed to buy tickets to fly foreign-based players to the country for the Ghana-Rwanda game will be directed to the Paralympic athletes.