The Ministry of Youth and Sports has issued a statement to clarify and breakdown the $3.6million it claimed to have paid to the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) to cover the African Games hosted in Accra this year.
This comes after the Minister for Youth and Sports, Honorable Mustapha Ussif, said the state broadcaster was paid in excess of $3million in response to a question asked by the Member of Parliament (MP) for Ningo Prapram Constituency, Sam Nartey George during a Public Accounts Committee sitting on Monday, August 19, 2024.
The quoted amount sparked conversations online with many calling for a proper probe into the alleged payments, after the Director General of GBC, Professor Amin Alhassan replied yesterday saying that GBC’s total benefit from the coverage of the All African Games was just $105,000.
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Documents circulating online to be the agreement signed between the ministry and GBC shows that some third parties were contracted to aid the broadcasting of the games.
And part of the GBC’s statement to the Public Accounts Committee confirmed this:
“The technical production was outsourced as GBC did not have the equipment to produce the Games. As a result, three other organizations PGS, Quality Media Production and The Production Room were responsible for the technical production.”
However, the ministry of youth and sports in a letter dated Tuesday, August 20, 2024 and signed by the minister still insists that over $3million was paid to GBC.
The statement said the GBC was directly paid a total amount of $2.5million in two tranches; $1miilion on March 13, 2024 and $1.5miilion on May 22, 2024.
Adding that “another amount of $1miilion was paid to third party upon instructions GBC, in accordance with the contract.”
Attached is the full statement:
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