Abandoned NYA Sports Centre In Ho Rotting Away
A 10,000-seater multi-purpose Youth Sports Centre project at Ho, the Volta Regional capital, which is meant to harness the potentials of the youth in the region, has been left to rot at the mercy of the weather.
The $2.4million project, which took off sometime in March 2018 under the supervision of the National Youth Authority, has been abandoned with the structure currently rotting away.
The site, which has also become bushy, is heavily infested with snakes and become a grazing ground for stray animals, including cattle.
The project was originally expected to be completed in February 2019, but three years down the line, it has been totally abandoned.
It was expected to provide a FIFA-standard football pitch, an eight-lane Athletics track, a tennis court, a basketball court, a handball court, a gymnasium, a counselling centre, a youth ICT centre, an entrepreneurship centre and a restaurant.
A recent visit to the site by GBC News revealed that there were no workers at the place.
With overgrown weeds, the seats on the stands have been left at the mercy of the weather, with portions of the metallic bars rusting off. Portions of the roofing panels at the VIP section of the facility have also been removed.
The team also learnt that members of the public sometimes turn up to gather firewood from the shrubs behind the uncompleted spectators’ stands and other structures.
A security man at the facility, Thomas Tsiogbor, told the news team that, but for his vigilance, some of the installations at the facility would have been stolen.
“The contractor says they are not paying the money with him also. Some people come to lose small things. Before we get them then they ran away. So, we let our boss know. He sent one of his ‘pikin’ to come so that we take the air conditioners, the ones on the floor and we put all for room and we locked it,” he added.
Mr. Tsiogbor was also not happy about the plight of the three security officers guarding the facility.
“We are paid the old money four million cedis (equivalent of GH₵400). At times, they will give us two million, at times they will give us 1.5million (equivalent of GH₵150) and at times…they will give us only one million. We are suffering here. We are pleading with our boss and the government that they should try and give us something to live on,” Mr. Tsiogbor stated.
Meanwhile, The Anchor has gathered that, since the National Youth Authority Act (Act 939) was passed into law, it yielded an amount of GH₵262,593,572.11 from the District Assembly Common Fund within the period 2017 to 2020.
This has left many to question why with these revenue streams, such a project, which costs $2.4million, an equivalent of GH₵14.4 million, would be abandoned.
It is, however, unclear what action the current management of the National Youth Authority, led by Mr. Pius Enam Hadzide, as the chief executive, would take to ensure a completion of the project in earnest.
Source: Anchorghana
