Sports: YEA to support 1000 athletes with monthly allowance
The Youth Employment Agency (YEA) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the National Sports Authority (NSA) to provide monthly stimulus packages to 1000 athletes for the next six months.
According to the Chief Executive Officer of the YEA, Mr Justin Kodua, the athletes would receive a monthly allowance of GHC500 as part of measures to support them during this COVID-19 pandemic .
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Speaking at the MOU signing last Monday, Mr Kodua noted that 500 slots had been reserved for the Ghana Football Association (GFA) while 400 and 100 beneficiaries would go to the Ghana Olympic Committee (GOC) and National Paralympic Committee (NPC) respectively.
“The YEA has been reviewing its modules and decided to financially support athletes who have been hardly hit by the COVID-19 pandemic in the country. We however agreed to support 1000 athletes who continue to suffer without any source of income within this period,” he explained.
“As we continue to preach, the package is meant for only sportsmen and women and we have asked the NSA to provide us with a list so we can commence payment,” Mr Kodua added.
Prof. Peter Twumasi, Director General of the NSA, lauded the initiative and called on federation heads to ensure only athletes without jobs were put on the list.
For his part, the President of GOC, Mr Ben Nunoo Mensah, said federation heads would be allowed to provide athletes to receive the monthly allowance so they could be held responsible should non-athletes find themselves on the list.
Mr Mensah said his outfit was grateful to the YEA for the gesture which he believed would cushion athletes in this difficult times of the pandemic.
“We must allow the federation heads to provide us with the list for the YEA. I’m saying this because, this will provide us with an opportunity to hold them responsible in case the YEA detect non-athletes on the list.”
