Sports Minister calls for closer sporting ties

Mr Edward Osei-Kwaku, Minister of Youth and Sports, has called for regular sporting activities between member-countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) as a way of further paving the way for regional integration.
He said sports is one of the tools that could bring the sub-region together since countries understand each other better during sporting activities.
These were contained in a speech read on his behalf by Dr Owusu Ansah, Chief Executive of the National Sports Council (NSC) at the opening of Zone 'E' elimination series of the 11th West African University Games (WAUG) which took off at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi on Wednesday.
Ghana, Benin, Togo and Niger are competing in soccer, volleyball, handball, basketball, lawn tennis and table tennis in Zone 'E'.
The first two universities to emerge as winners in any of the disciplines would qualify to represent the zone at the main competition slated for Burkina Faso in December.
Mr Osei-Kwaku commended the Local Organising Committee (LOC) for putting in place measures to ensure the success of the games and urged the participating universities to abide by the rules and regulations of the games to ensure its success.
Professor Kwasi Kwafo Adarkwa, Pro Vice-Chancellor of KNUST, the host university, called on the country's universities to make sports an academic discipline in order to unearth sporting talents to represent the country at international competitions.
Dr Owusu Ansah made a personal contribution of five million cedis and 10 footballs towards the success of the games.
In the opening soccer match, goals from Ampadu Sarpong, Edward Nkansah and Micheal Boansi in the 24th, 47th and 87th minutes respectively were all that KNUST needed to beat the University of Benin 3-0.