The National Paralympic Committee (NPC) of Ghana has approved amendments to its constitution at its first-ever Extraordinary General Assembly (EGA) 2024 held today in Accra, making several reforms to expand para sports in the country.
It was a historic moment for the Paralympic movement in Ghana as it evolves its structures to be more inclusive and provide a nurturing environment for the para athletes to thrive across diverse sporting disciplines.
The assembly, chaired by NPC President Mr. Samson Deen, brought together leaders from various national sports federations, government officials, and other stakeholders to discuss critical issues shaping the future of para sports in the country.
Approval of Annual Membership Fees, approval of New Para Sports and their respective Federations/Associations, Amendments to Article 2 Membership: Sections 1 to 5 and Date for Elective General Assembly were the key issues ratified by delegates at Saturday’s meeting held at the Airport West Hotel.
In his welcome address, Deen highlighted significant milestones for Ghana’s Paralympic movement under his leadership over the past four years amid unproductive activities of some saboteurs who tried to thwart his efforts.
“Dear Delegates, a lot of gains have been made for the past four years despite the negative and unproductive activities of some individuals and groups just to thwart the effort of this administration,” he said.
“Notwithstanding these challenges, we have remained committed, focused, and resilient and this has inspired the successes chalked so far. We have witnessed our athletes participating in all the major international and world events including the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games in Japan, the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games in the United Kingdom; the historic hosting of the First African Para Games by Ghana brought and left a lot of benefits for our sports including a dedicated office; variety of sports equipment which has been distributed to various Sports Federations, a 44 Seater Bus yet to cleared from the Tema Port, Training of national and international classifiers for para athletics, powerlifting, boccia, wheelchair tennis; training of coaches and technical officials for various sports are some of the remarkable achievements of this administration.”
He expressed his profound gratitude to the Minister of Youth and Sports, the Deputy Minister, and the Ghana Olympic Committee President for their support in his ground-breaking election.
“I am particularly grateful to the Honorable Minister, His Deputy Minister Honorable Evans Opoku Bobbie and Mr. Ben Nunoo Mensah, President of the Ghana Olympic Committee (GOC) for your support as a candidate and my eventual election to head the African continental Region Organization – the African Paralympic Committee as its President. Unprecedented in the history of the Paralympic Movement in Ghana and the West African Sub-region,” he said. “I will forever remain grateful and indebted to you.”
Saturday’s extraordinary assembly’s constitutional reforms and expanded sporting codes charted an empowering roadmap for inclusivity and excellence.
With ten para federations, the General Assembly of the Ghana Paralympic Committee formed a quorum out of thirteen to admit sports federations that successfully qualified the constitutional provision and Ghana’s Sports Regulations 2023 L.I. 2477.
It therefore granted approval for six new para sports federations/associations to come under the NPC’s umbrella, while the approved entities are Adaptive Boxing, Boccia Sports, Para Biathlon, Wheelchair Rugby, Para Archery, and Wheelchair Softball.
Per the constitutional amendments, all recognized disability sports, that existed before 2019 and are affiliated with international sports federations with notable ones like Para Table Tennis, Boccia Para Sports, Amputee Football Association, Para Soft, Para Teqball, Para Judo, and Adaptive Boxing, must register and be members of the NPC Ghana by default, said a statement by the NPC at the meeting.
Other key agenda items such as consideration of annual membership fees and setting a date for the next elective assembly as per the NPC constitution were all approved.
Mr. Deen expressed optimism that the reforms will unlock new frontiers of growth and opportunities for para athletes to shine on the global stage under his administration.
