Kpenge blames scribes for Ghana Sports woes

The Director General of the National Sports Authority (NSA), Joe Kpenge, says Ghana sport is in  crisis, blaming journalists  for not checking the relevant authorities who are supposed to release funds for sports programmes.

Speaking last Monday at a ceremony organised to present athletics coaches with IAAF Coaches Education Certification Systems (CECS) Level 1 certificates, Kpenge stated that the crisis situation had resulted in the NSA being unable to organise national competitons over the past two years.

“I said  Ghana sport is in  crisis because; there are  lot of programmes that we should have run over the past year and even the year before that we could not run. 

“Competitions such as the national Unity Games did not come on because of a lack of resources”, he stated.

The first people to be blamed for this situation are journalists because they are the custodians or the mouthpiece for the contract between society and government agencies. If government agencies are crying that the contract is not being implemented who else but journalists should bring it up.

The former Director-General of the Winneba Sports College appealed to journalists to investigate why the NSA’s budget allocations were not being released by the Ministry of Finance.

“This is not the first time I have said the NSA is facing challenges. I have not shied away from saying we are not getting our budget and journalists know who should release the budget, why are they not checking who will release the resources?

“That is why I will blame you (Journalists) before blaming myself; you must investigate those holding the mantle. How many times have you asked the Ministry of Finance why money has not been released to NSA? Have you? It is not enough to blame NSA, journalists should point fingers at themselves, Kpenge stressed.

Mr Kpenge added that sports in Ghana had a bright future if the NSA could explore other sectors of funding such as the private sector.