In the eyes of the Ghanaian

Issues of sports tend to dominate discussions at any level in our everyday life in Ghana, mainly because it is a universal language that could bridge the communication gap worldwide.

The problem is that Ghanaians have not paid much attention to what really pertains at the Ministry of Youth and Sports that oversee the day to day running of sports in the country.

This situation seems to even get worse when issues of bonuses for the senior national team; the Black Stars, come to the fore.

It is on record that over the years the Ministry has seen many ministers reshuffled than any other ministry in the country.

The Sports Ministry is also perceived by many as a goldmine, which is being controlled by few a ‘mafia’ group, which bares its teeth to any Minister who in one way or the other wants to institute measures to eliminate their activities.

As a sports journalist, I now understand why the current Minister of Youth and Sports, Mr Edwin Nii Lante Vanderpuye has labelled the Ministry as “broke”.

The Youth and Sports Ministry like any other ministry presents its budget to Government for review.

The Ministry this year was allocated a budget of only GH¢ 22million, out of which GH¢ 11 million was dedicated to the payment of salaries and allowances of the staff and the agencies and departments under it as against the GH¢ 42 million needed to fund all its activities.

Mr Vanderpuye passionately appealed to stakeholders to come on board when he met with the Sports Writers Association of Ghana at the Media centre at the Accra Sports Stadium.

"There is, therefore, the need for prudence and ingenuity in managing the resources at hand. We need to invite all the stakeholders to a meeting and discuss how best to manage what we have,” he said.

It was refreshing that the Minister who was once a Sports Journalist assured Ghanaians that football would no longer be the only sport to look to look at.

He said: "The era of pumping everything into one sporting discipline is definitely over, you may never know who is going to win a medal for you at the Olympic Games and so we must ensure that all sectors are given what is due them, to promote their sport."

Many sporting disciplines are going to suffer again this year from my opinion because the Sports Ministry has only a paltry sum of about GH¢ 7 million to cater for all programmes for the year.

According to Otor Plahar, Head of Public Relations at the Ministry: “The Sports Ministry is like any Government Institution or Ministry. I think the only difference here is that we carry the passion of the nation because is a Ministry directly in charge of Sports and Football, especially which is the passion of the nation.”

In the eyes of the Ghanaian the Sports Ministry is a goldmine but in reality is just one of the many ministries after all.