A Ghanaian philanthropist and the CEO of a Nigerian sports fields building company have both levelled serious allegations against politicians, who they say are sabotaging their respective projects.
By: Newsdesk
Last week, Madam Beatrice Owarewaa Siaw, an aspiring politician currently residing in the UK, accused the Asante Mampong Municipal Assembly and their incumbent member for the Ghanaian Parliament of stifling her attempt to develop sports infrastructure in the area.
Siaw has privately funded the installation of a synthetic turf surface in Ghana.
“I spent over GHS 500,000 on the drains alone and another GHS 200,000 on levelling and clearing the field using my own excavators and machinery. I did this without a single pesewa from the government or any other source,” she was quoted saying by news outlet Modern Ghana.
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However, the moment the field was getting into shape, the local municipality issued a stop-work order. She blames incumbent MP, Kwaku Ampratwum-Sarpong. “When I was doing the dirty capital-intensive work of constructing the drains to save people’s homes from flooding, no one stopped me. No one asked for designs or professional stamps. But the moment the park began to take shape and gained public approval, they intervened.”
“To impress visually”
Meanwhile, in Nigeria, Ebi Egbe, CEO of Monimichelle Sports Facilities Ltd, told news outlet ThisDay that “The reason why most Nigerian stadium turfs fail to meet CAF/FIFA certification is because our sports administrators only concern themselves with the lush green nature of football pitches, rather than demanding to know from the contractors if the jobs they have done can stand the pressure of usage. We keep building stadiums that impress visually but fail functionally.”
He continued: “Every pitch may look green from the stands, but not every green surface meets the standard required for elite football. It is only the end-users like the players, coaches, and match officials who can truly judge whether a pitch is good or not. Administrators are not end users; they can only judge from appearance, which is not enough.”
He warned that until Nigerian sports administrators shift their focus from how a pitch looks to how it performs and endures, “we will keep building stadiums that impress visually but fail functionally. A pitch is not judged on commissioning day; it is judged months and years later under match pressure. If it cannot maintain quality consistently, then the ‘green’ was only cosmetic.”
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