The Minister of Youth & Sports, Mustapha Ussif rendered an account of how the taxpayers' money was spent in the 2023 AFCON on the floor of Ghana's
The Minister of Youth & Sports, Mustapha Ussif rendered an account of how the taxpayers’ money was spent in the 2023 AFCON on the floor of Ghana’s parliament on Wednesday.
Speaking in front of Ghana’s parliamentarians, the Sports Minister disclosed that the Sports Ministry budgeted $8.5 M but $5M was released by the Ministry of Finance as the $3.5M was supposed to be released later when Ghana progressed to the knockout phase.
“Mr Speaker, our estimated budget for the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations tournament was $8,506,450.00 to cater for the team’s pre-tournament and the Tournament Phases (group stages, 1/16 stage, quarter-final, semi-final and final),” he declared.
“Out of the $8,506,450.00, $5,071,840.36 was released by the Ministry of Finance of which US$3,070,067.81 was spent on per diems, flight arrangements for the team, medicals, equipment, logistics and hospitality.
“This resulted in a surplus of $2,001,772.55, after our exit from the tournament,” he clarified.
“An amount of US$400,000.00 was received from MTN Ghana. This contributed immensely in complementing the Government’s expenditure towards the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations tournament.”
“Mr Speaker, the Ministry had negotiated to pay bonuses should the team progress to the next round of the tournament, therefore, no qualification bonuses were paid due to the team’s exit at the group stage.
“Mr Speaker, this measure adopted by the Ministry, was aimed at motivating the team to go all out and progress from one stage of the competition to the other, and also ensure prudent management of resources,” he stated.
A tournament in which the winner takes home $7M, why would anyone dare to make a budget of $8.5M?
Ghana was embarrassingly eliminated in the group stage after failing to win a single game in a group against Egypt, Cape Verde and Mozambique.
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