Deputy Sports Minister, Perry Okudzeto, has stated that the completion of the regional sports centres across the country will be heavily affected due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
The centres, which are being built under the mandate of the National Youth Authority and by extension, the Sports Ministry, form part of government’s plans to properly engage the country’s youth and help them hone their sporting talents for the nation’s benefit and also give them some skills for life.
The 10 centres were set for completion by the mid-point of the year but with the pandemic still spreading and bringing loads of sectors and industries to a halt, their completion was always to get affected and the deputy sports minister confirmed this on Wednesday.
He was speaking at a programme organised by Accra-based radio station Happy 98.9 FM and GTV Sports Plus on Wednesday on the impact of the pandemic in Ghana sports.
“Everything in the sports domain has been affected and nothing has been left out but we are hoping to turn things around quickly for the contractors to complete the projects because some of the facilities are about 85 percent complete while others are at between 60 and 70 percent complete.
We hope to put a roadmap in place so that we will be speed up work so that work can be finished within the last quarter of the year.”
The sports centres are expected to contain football stadia which can hold between 5,000 and 10,000 people and will have 8-lane running tracks, courts for basketball, handball and tennis, gyms, ICT Training centres, counselling centres, entrepreneurship centres and restaurants.