Deputy Minister of Youth and Sports, Mr. Pius Enam Hadzide says a budgetary allocation to the Ghana Boxing Federation (GBF) has been halted by the ministry because it is not fully convinced that the federation has properly accounted for its earlier expenditures.
24 members of the national amateur boxing team, Black Bombers have camped as they prepare for the 2017 Africa Boxing Championship which will be held in Congo. They are currently having daily training at the Accra Sports Stadium.
In an interview with Onua FM Sports, Mr. Hadzide claimed the ministry was yet to see any major program of amateur boxing development in the country.
“At this point, the ministry is unable to approve of the expenditure for their intended external travel. We came to that decision for several reasons.
“We believe that we are using the peoples’ money. When we give you money for a project, you need to properly account for it to justify your demand for more. Again, we haven’t seen any major program of amateur boxing development in this country that will culminate in the selection of a national team,” he argued.
He further noted: “We also conducted some due diligence on their budget and found some discrepancies in the budget that was presented and even the requirements from the international federations and the host organizations.”
According to the deputy minister, the federation’s request of funds in the region of $50,000 could have helped the federation to build and develop the discipline locally.
“We are not just going to continue in the old way of doing things where federations are silence for the whole year. They go on the internet, google for competitions and find that there is going to be competitions in country A or B, bring a bill and select people that are even unknown in most cases and say that we (the ministry) should fund them,” he added.
Meanwhile, 20 men and 4 women boxers have been training for about three weeks now ahead of the competition which is scheduled for Brazaville, Congo.
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