News:
July 26, 2013
The Member of Parliament (MP) for Akwapim South, Osei Bonsu Amoah has informed that the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) does not have the locus to change the name of the National Hockey Stadium or any other facility.
He claims the fact that the AMA has a lot of facilities under its jurisdiction or municipality does not mean they can go ahead and change its name at any time without consultation.
O.B. Amoah made this remark following a decision by the AMA boss, Alfred Oko Vanderpuiye to rename the “Theodosia Oko National Hockey Stadium” to “John Evans Atta Mills National Hockey Stadium” in honour of the late President and to commemorate his one year passing.
However the decision subsequently snowballed into a national outrage. Many people appeared to be angry with the AMA Boss for taking away the honour given to Madam Theodosia Oko, designer of Ghana’s National Flag who also happens to be alive.
This led to an intervention from the Presidency: the Accra Mayor was asked to rescind his decision.
“That was the same thing they did with the Accra Sports Stadium which was changed to the Ohene Djan Sports Stadium and the authorities kept quiet. They said nothing about it… This time fortunately the presidency is intervening,” O.B. Amoah noted.
Speaking in an interview on Citi FM, O.B. Amoah who was also a former Deputy Minister responsible for Education and Sports in the erstwhile Kufuor administration, opined: “The facility is a state facility and the AMA does not have the power to determine how the facility should be named”.
He said before any decision of that sort can be taken, the National Sports Authority would have to inform the “Ministry of Sports and then the Ministry of Sports will also report to the presidency… change of name is done at the cabinet level and so if the AMA thinks they can just come and change the name then it is very unfortunate but I am glad they have been called to order.”
Peacefmonline.com