On Tuesday, June 7,2022, a delegation led by the Director-General of National Sports Authority (NSA), Professor Peter Twumasi visited the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) to sign a memorandum of understanding with their Horticulture Department.
The delegation was welcomed by the Vice Chancellor of KNUST Professor Rita Akosua Dickson and in her welcoming address, she commended the NSA Boss Prof. Twumasi for his immense contribution to sports in Ghana.
Prof. Peter Twumasi thanked the Vice Chancellor for hosting his team and congratulated her and the University for being 1st and 14th on the African continent and globally respectively.
He went further to state the purpose of the visit. He said, per the current National Sports Act, 2016 (Act 394), the major responsibility of the NSA is to ensure that sports of all kinds are developed, promoted and managed in the country and to ensure that every Ghanaian who has been given the opportunity to excel in any of these activities get the support of the country.
He stressed on the fact that NSA has achieved a lot and one of the key areas he talked about was their infrastructural development and how it has created opportunities to the youth.
Some of these infrastructures are the renovations of the existing stadiums and the creating of multipurpose stadiums in some districts which will help ease the pressure on the existing ones.
Sports Act 964 section 3L indicates that, the NSA must enter into research and development and since there is no such research institutes, the NSA is looking at how research firms like KNUST can use indigenous materials for AstroTurf. In the Vice Chancellor’s remark, she said anytime subject of research and collaboration is touched, the nerves of KNUST are touched too.
According to her, KNUST as the leading science and technology has the mandate to go through research for fair solutions to solve the marring problems this country has and even go beyond to the shores of the country. She was grateful that the NSA has found it expedient to come and have this collaboration with her institution.
She assured the NSA that the university is ready and prepared, well able to provide that needed backbone in terms of collaborating with the NSA to be able to foster solutions using local resources.
Present at the meeting were; Laura Atuah, Francis Appiah, Daniel Berquaye and Enoch Agyei from the Department of Horticulture, Ben Bamfo, Pro-host of the Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Daniel Duah, Dean of International Programmes Office and Gladys Addai form the International Programmes Office.
The delegation from the NSA that accompanied Prof Twumasi were Emmanuel Kojo Appiah, Acting Regional Director of NSA Ashanti, Dr. Enoch Baah, Head of Education, Training and Research Unit, Joshua Sekyere Koranchie, Administrator for Education, Training and Research Unit and Naseeba Yahaya, Public Relations Department.
By: Naseeba Yahaya/A/R-NSA