Member of the Local Organising Committee (LOC) for the African Games, Dan Kwaku Yeboah,has strongly defended the expenditure on the recent event hosted in Ghana, dismissing calls for financial scrutiny.
Yeboah contends that hosting such large-scale events has never been a profitable venture for any nation, and Ghana is no different.
He emphasized that the primary advantage of hosting the Games lies in the development of infrastructure, which will position Ghana favorably for future sporting bids.
Yeboah stressed that the long-term benefits, including improved facilities, outweigh the immediate financial concerns.
“The propaganda that people are doing is that, Ghana did not profit from the African Games. You don’t get any benefit from hosting African Games.
He noted that a major benefit of hosting the Games is infrastructure, which will help in developing other sporting disciplines in the long run.
“The NDC MPs that are calling for the probing, are the beneficiaries? The key benefit you get from hosting the African Games is the infrastructure to develop other sports.
So the argument we did not make any profit, there is no profit from hosting the African Games. When Mali decided to host it, they couldn’t get the funds and lost the hosting right to Morocco.”
He emphasised that due to the infrastructural benefit from the Games, Ghana have bid to host the African Athletics Championship.
“No one has hosted the African Games and declared profit since 1965. The benefit is that due to the infrastructure Ghana has bid to host the African Championship.
Ghana can now host the Rugby Championship, Ghana can host the swimming championship because we have an international standard swimming pool. That is our benefit.”
The ace broadcaster clarified that he is not defending people who might have embezzled funds.
“I’ve not said that they shouldn’t arrest anybody for embezzlement. But you might think differently because it’s an election year and people are doing agenda. I dare anybody to prove to me that when Nigeria hosted it in 1973 they made a profit.”
Dan Kwaku Yeboah’s assertion is in relation to a $3 million broadcast rights saga between the Sports Ministry and the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation for the Games.
The Ministry claimed they paid the aforementioned amount to GBC to broadcast the games, while GBC, in response, denied receiving the said amount, insisting that they earned $105,000.