Ghana fails to instigate IOC boycott
Minister of Youth and Sports, Ms Akua Sena Dansua has failed to instigate her colleague Ministers of Youth and Sports of Commonwealth States to boycott the just ended first Olympic Convention, in Acapulco, Mexico.
A letter written by the Minister to her colleagues ahead of the meeting which was made available to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) instigated the Ministers to boycott the Mexico meeting to protest “at the way the IOC is handling the impasse between the Ghana Olympic Committee on one hand and the National Olympic Associations on the other hand”.
While the Ghanaian Minister boycotted the meeting, she surprisingly requested her colleague Ministers “to take this advocacy up very seriously in her absence” in a two-page letter to her colleagues.
Ms Dansua described as ridiculous the IOC’s position which tells Ghana that until the Sports Bill is passed, it will not ask the out-going executive led by Mr B. T Baba to convene Congress to elect new executives.
She said “the IOC position is ridiculous, especially because the outgoing GOC executives benefited from the current Sports Law, SMCD Law 54 which had them appointed as executives of Associations from where they were ‘appointed’ into the GOC”.
The Minister said “the IOC fallaciously thinks they are bigger than our sovereign nations and governments which spend a fortune developing sports in our countries.”
She asked her colleague Ministers “to ask IOC how it contribute to the development of sports infrastructure, equipment and talent development in any country as a result of which they could hold our sovereign countries to ransom.”
She encouraged her colleagues and called on them “Let us all bind together and use this opportunity to call the bluff of the IOC once and for all. I believe our Regional and Continental Sports Ministers Caucuses could lead this campaign to tell the IOC they are not bigger than our sovereign nations and government”.
“I hope we all stay together and win this campaign as we work to progressively develop sports in our countries. I am standing by for a feedback on the outcome of the meeting”.
The Minister said that Ghana’s Chef de Mission, to the Delhi Commonwealth Games, Mohammed Sahnoon, who was appointed by the out-going GOC President, B. T. Baba is his personal lawyer and is the one handling the legal issues vis-à-vis the National Associations in court.
She said that the Associations are meanwhile asking the GOC to account for how the 100,000 dollars sent by the Commonwealth Sports Federation to prepare athletes from Ghana for the 2010 Games.
Source: GNA