Member of Parliament for Asante Akim North, Hon Kwadwo Baah Agyemang has called for a review and amendment of the recently passed Sports Bill, saying it was rushed by the outgoing government to score ‘political points’.
Speaking to Kumasi-based Adehye FM, Baah Agyemang, who doubles as a member of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Youth and Sports and Culture, claimed he was not privy to certain information during proceedings, and was totally not happy with how the bill was presented, of which there were certain amendments that needed to be critically dealt with before passing it into fruition.
The idea of the bill was first proposed by former president J.A Kuffour in 2000 but various attempts to see it passed in the previous years proved difficult, claiming there were few skirmishes with the bill.
However, it was finally accepted and passed in parliament in October 2016 – 16 years down the line.
“There is nothing new in this bill after rushing to present it to parliament. I can say the only new thing is the change from Sports Council to Sports Commission,” he told Kumasi-based Adehye FM.
“This shouldn’t have been rushed. Measures should have been taken to carefully scrutinize the bill.
“They [outgoing government] rushed to present it. A bill such as this needed careful study. Although it is passed, if it is allowed to stay on like this, it is definitely not going to help. The NPP [incoming government] will have to change it.”
He said there other avenues the government could have used to tap money to help run the various sports councils in the country but failed to do so.
“There are a lot of Oil Marketing Companies (OMC) in the country who gain huge amount of profit in their businesses. They could have tasked them on a certain percentage which will directly go into sports development.
“Quite apart from that, there are rising number of ‘galamseys’ who are tasked by the various districts and none goes into sports development.”
