Accra 2023 African Games executive chairman Kwaku Ofosu-Asare says he is confident that facilities for the event would be completed on time.
With under a year to go until the postponed Games, scheduled for March 8 to 23 2024, he stated that construction staff were working round the clock to meet the agreed timelines.
Ofosu-Asare toured the project sites and described the pace of work as encouraging.
“What we are doing at the moment is to work hard with the facilities at Borteyman [Olympic Complex] and at the University of Ghana Stadium, Legon,” he said, as reported by Modern Ghana.
“Legon is far advanced; we just had a meeting today and the contractor is expected to finish everything by July.
“Then, we have the contractor who is also handling the Games Village and is also expected to hand over in July.
“With regards to the one working at Borteyman, he will have a bit of time until February next year to fine-tune the works.”
Ofosu-Asare announced that tomorrow the Organising Committee would make a final decision on whether the Games’ aquatic centre should be opened.
Experts had advised against the construction of a roofed facility which takes longer to complete and was also impractical considering Ghana’s hot climate.
“For Borteyman, the key facility there is the swimming pool,” said Ofosu-Asare.
“With the swimming pool what came up yesterday was that we can have the open one, and if we are to have the open one, it’s not going to take them that long to complete.
“It is the closed one, that is the one with the roof over the pool, that will take a bit of time.
“We have the tennis court also being constructed over there and it’s also at an advanced stage.
“We are going to have both the open court and the roofed court and there is every assurance that they [contractors] would be able to finish on time.”
Ghana’s economic crisis played a part in forcing organisers to postpone the event, as it was initially due to take place from August 4 to 19, but Ofosu-Asare is not concerned.
“People are also worried about the funding; the government is funding all these,” he added.
“We know we are going through tough times but there is the commitment and the President has given us every assurance that we will definitely host the Games come what may.”
