President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has commissioned the Borteyman sports complex, signaling Ghana’s readiness to host the 13th African Games.
As excitement builds up for the coming of the African Games scheduled for next month (March 8 – 23, March 2024), President Akufo-Addo said this is the first time the country would host the African Games.
Speaking at the Commissioning of the Borteyman sports complex in the Tema West municipality on Tuesday, President Akufo-Addo said notwithstanding the delay of the project due to COVID-19, Ghana would organise the best African Games in history.
Due to the COVID-19 supply chain disruption, the government adopted a proposal from the Ministry of Youth and Sports to upgrade existing infrastructure in Accra to supplement new ones for the Games.
As the torchbearer of the African independence movement, Ghana was among 30 countries that participated in the first All-African Games in Brazzaville, Congo in 1965.
Since then, President Akufo-Addo said the games had been held on 11 occasions but never in Ghana.
The glory days of Ghanaian sports in athletics, boxing, football and table tennis, according to President Alufo-Addo, “are somewhat behind us” but the government is poised to reverse the trend.
The President said before 2017, Ghana had only three public sports facilities but currently the country can boast of 10 sports complexes in ten regions and over 150 AstroTurfs.
The provision of the requisite infrastructure to sustain these achievements, the President intimated, would help to regain Ghana’s pride as a place of sports on the continent and the world.
The President said hosting the 13th African Games would enable the country to address capacity deficiencies by providing the relevant human resources to run and manage sports in Ghana.
The Complex is fitted with a 1,000-seater competition swimming pool, that is a 10-lane competition swimming pool, an 8-lane warm-up swimming pool, a 1,000-seater multi-purpose sports hall for basketball, badminton, boxing, table tennis and weightlifting and a 500 seater temporary dome for handball, volleyball, judo, karate and taekwondo.
The rest are a five tennis court complex, including a 1000 seater centre court, a 6-lane warm-up athletics track, one FIFA standard football training field, a 6-kilometre single lane road and a 3-kilometre double lane road.
Again, in place of the Olympic Stadium Complex at Borteyman, the University of Ghana Sports Stadium has been upgraded to international standards for some events for the African Games.
Rex Mainoo Yeboah, ISD