SWAG Elections: Who wins General Secretary Position?

The Sports Writers Association of Ghana (SWAG) Elections come off on April 18, 2015 at the Media Center of the Accra Sports Stadium and with the President's position already decided after no one challenged veteran writer Kwabena Yeboah of Africa Sports and GTV Sports High Lights fame, the focus is on who wins the General Secretary position.

Members' hope to win the scribe position is Deputy General Secretary, Sammy Heywood Okine, a regular contributor of Ghana web.com Sports who is Producer of “On The Ball” on GTV and also Executive Director of World Star Media Services (WSMS).

He faces stiff opposition from incumbent William Ezah of the Ghana News Agency who acted as Secretary for three years before beating Graphic Sports Maurice Quansah for the position four years ago.

Maurice Quansah who intends moving up once again has to beat the reigning Vice President of the Association, Ben Ohene Ayeh for his post.

Contesting for the Deputy General Secretary position are Nana Prempeh of Rainbow Radio and Thomas Boakye Agyman of Happy FM.

Three people want to keep the SWAG fund, but one has to win through the ballot, they are Rosalind Amoh of Graphic Sports, Helga Gokah of The Tide Newspaper and Russel Wiafe of ETV.

For Executive Members, three members are contesting and the two who get the highest votes will be elected. They are Peter Mensah of Fabulous News, George Larry Botchway of the Information Service Dept (ISD) and Charles Osei Asibey of Happy FM.

The Elections which was supposed to be held in December 2014 had to be postponed twice due to circumstances beyond the control of the Association and still some members are agitating for the right things to be done before the elections as some of the contestants do not qualify to stand for positions in the highly respected Media Association.

According to the SWAG Constitution one has to serve five years and be a member of a Committee before contesting for the Executive positions, apart from being in good standing in payment of dues.

In another development, members are calling for the audited accounts of the association before the old executives hand over.

The SWAG was founded in 1968 with Joe Lartey (Over To You) as the first President. He was succeeded by the late Willie Kwarteng, before Ohneba Charles took over and handed over to “Big Joe” Aggrey in who era SWAG organized its first democratic elections.

Joe Aggrey handed over to Ebo Quansah who reigned for four years and succeeded by Ackah Anthony who has been on the seat for eight years in two terms.

The SWAG is well known for the longest running award which is in its 40th season and the annual match involving the best or popular clubs in the country.

Currently the association has over 200 active and passive members and only those in good standing would be eligible to vote.

Meanwhile, the next SWAG Awards ceremony has been fixed for May 30, 2015 with leading telecom company MTN as the main sponsor.