Posted:Daily Guide |Friday, 18 June 2010
By Charles Takyi-Boadu & William Yaw Owusu
The 345 stranded soccer fans may have been successfully flown to South Africa to cheer the Black Stars in their encounter with their Australian counterparts tomorrow, but there are still lingering questions about the names and identities of the individuals and groups of persons said to have sponsored the trip.
DAILY GUIDE sources said that instead of the usual El-Wak Stadium where pre-departure formalities were carried out, the supporters, mostly National Democratic Congress (NDC) foot-soldiers, were ferried to the Zenith College area at the back of the Trade Fair at La, where the supporters were screened by NDC officials including the party’s Women’s Organizer, Anita De Souza.
Deputy Minister of Local Government Elvis Afriyie Ankrah, who was the main architect behind the initiative, is not forthcoming with details about those who sponsored it since they do not want their names and identities to be made public.
In an interview with DAILY GUIDE yesterday, Mr. Afriyie Ankrah said they undertook the exercise from a humanitarian point of view since they were touched by the plight of the stranded supporters, some of whom had been staying at the El-Wak stadium for almost a week without food or water.
However, DAILY GUIDE sources said an individual who was at the Zenith College for the screening coughed out a staggering $1.5million to support the airlifting of the supporters.
According to DAILY GUIDE sources, Kobby Woyome, Member of Parliament for South Tongu and his brother, Alfred Woyome of the Office of the President, are said to have contributed to the funding of airlifting the fans to South Africa.
When contacted on his mobile phone yesterday, the MP confirmed to DAILY GUIDE that they were “supporting the government as private individuals” to airlift the stranded fans to South Africa.
“We came in as a private entity. We are using our own money to support the government to get the fans there,” he said.
Asked how much they were spending to airlift the fans, Mr. Woyome, who sounded busy, said “this is something we can talk about later.
We are under serious tension. You can hear from the background. Everybody wants to go to watch Ghana play.”
DAILY GUIDE learnt that his elder brother, Alfred, was mentioning the names of the supporters at the Zenith College, prior to their departure.
Even before the World Cup is over, a pressure group, Progressive Nationalist Forum (PNF), has already expressed concern about the manner in which the government was handling the airlifting of the fans and has called for investigations into the matter.
A statement issued in Accra yesterday and signed by Richard Nyamah, spokesperson of PNF, said “we are calling on the President to set up an investigative committee to look into the shambolic handling of the transportation of the fans to South Africa and the embarrassing treatment they underwent in both Ghana and South Africa.”
The group said government should also “do a full disclosure of the amount the state spent on sending the fans to South Africa.
To this effect, there should be a full publication of the list of the fans, the cost of transportation, feeding and lodging and entertainment.
“We also are requesting a publication of the supposed philanthropists who chose to bear the cost of the last 405 fans and their linkages to the government if any.
We also wish to hear the philanthropists indicate what motivated them to do what they did so we can determine if Ghanaians will be paying back at a later date in a different form.”
According to the PNF, the airlifting of the fans is estimated to cost not less than GH¢6 million to the state to transport, feed, house and entertain them in South Africa.
“An air ticket is between $1000 and 1,200. At $1000 per ticket, we the taxpayers will be paying some $1,405,000 or the cedi equivalent of some GH¢2,000,000. An average hotel bill at this moment in South Africa is $500,” it said.
“Granted that most of the fans will be housed in hostels at some $100 per day, this will amount to some $140,500 per day for all the fans. If the fans are to be in South Africa for the duration of the first round matches, they will be staying for a minimum of fourteen days at our expense.
This will cost us some $196,700 or the equivalent of GH¢3m. If the 1405 fans were even to be fed for only $1m, the total bill for their stay in South Africa will cost this state not less than GH¢6m,” PNF added.
Ras Mubarak, an NDC activist, also lambasted the government for flying “disgruntled” party foot-soldiers to South Africa under the pretext of sending soccer fans there.
In an article posted on the net, Mubarak thinks the purpose is to score political points.
“We should find out whether indeed it was a priority to sponsor over thousand people who are made up of largely party supporters, in a very weak attempt to assuage the base of the NDC, which is not impressed so far about what is happening.
“The critical issue for me as a Ghanaian is to find out whether it is a priority for a government that is complaining about a former administration [of] leaving mountains of debts and actually rolling out austere measures that are squeezing Ghanaians,” he queried.
He asked for the identity of the faces behind the so-called sponsorship. “A time has come for us to ask for full disclosure; who are the so-called sponsors who have associated themselves with this trip?
They cannot tell Ghanaians that these companies do not want to be mentioned.”
He said the gesture by the government was not only an attempt at silencing the members of NDC but to get good press, which unfortunately turned out to be a “bad attempt”.
He added that the “whole intention behind sending people to South Africa is not hinged on good faith”.
Though the government has denounced any involvement in organizing the last flight and accommodation for the stranded fans who were flown on late Wednesday evening via a chartered flight, the Deputy Minister’s failure to give details about the individual sponsors, in a way, seeks to give some sort of credence to the speculations of underhand dealings.
But Mr. Afriyie-Ankrah insists “we got ourselves together and then we got some public spirited people to support and that’s what we did”.
Asked about the names and identities of other individuals who contributed to the cost of the entire trip of the stranded fans, including their going and return ticket, food and accommodation, he said “in Ghana, people support many, many causes, sometimes they want it to be public; sometimes they want it to be quiet.
So, I think that in this case, people feel that they are just doing this in the public interest not for PR or publicity.”
For this reason, he said, “they just want to keep it quiet and I think that it is something we must also respect.”
He would not disclose the number of people who raised the money involved, neither would he tell how much it cost to put everything together, saying “for all you know, me too I contributed maybe some GH¢500 or GH¢1,000.”
“If I hire a bus to cart people from El-Wak to the airport, it’s a contribution, isn’t. If somebody brings 1,000 packs of take-away, it’s a contribution.
If somebody brings water to them, it’s a contribution, do you understand me?” he asked rhetorically, stressing “people contributed in diverse ways but everybody thinks it should be a quiet thing,” he added.
The 345 of the 400 or so football fans who were stranded at the El-Wak Sports stadium since last week were flown to South Africa on late Wednesday.
They were left stranded after government, through the Deputy Minister of Youth and Sports, Nii Nortey Duah, said it had finished airlifting all one thousand fans it budgeted for and for that matter could not make any further provision for the remaining fans.
This led to a misunderstanding between the Deputy Ministers of Youth and Sports, whose Ministry was in-charge of organizing the trip, and the Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, who wanted to save the face of government in the heat of the disappointment.
Meanwhile, a Deputy Sports Minister under the Kufuor Administration and Member of Parliament for Aburi-Nsawam constituency, Osei Bonsu Amoah, has cautioned the NDC government of the consequences of sponsoring such a large number of people for the World Cup.
He fears that there is likely to be some difficulties in bringing the people back after the tournament.