Our activities are largely spontaneous. The real and true value of our athletes is often not realized either at the national or global level because we don’t systematically take them through the required chronological stages of athlete development.
ASM: What can you say you have done in your short tenure thus far as Sports Minister to try and alleviate some of those problems you highlighted above?
Minister Khanou: This expose is the outcome of my personal appraisal of the sector on assumption of office in April of 2016.
I therefore set myself the following goals:
Review the National Sport Policy to reflect and align with the Sustainable Development Goals and other global initiatives.
This has been followed by a repeal of the National Sport Council Act of 1964 to introduce a National Sport Authority bill whose drafting has been concluded. Provision is made in the proposed legislation for:
a) Funding mechanism through the establishment of a National Sport Foundation
b) A National Institute of Sport for the identification, training and development of athletes, coaches and officials for competitiveness.
As a practice the goals of sport are beyond just winning a game or winning a contest. The values and skills you teach are lifelong and cannot be acquired in any four-walled room.
As a sector, the potential in providing life skills is still undervalued or underestimated amid a burgeoning youth population.
Because of this first reason the attendant result is that resource mobilization either from government or the private sector is hard to come by.
Finally, we do not have a system whereby athletes, coaches and officials can be scientifically identified, trained and retained in the sector.