Prof. Amin Alhassan, the Director-General of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC), has denied allegations made by the Sports Ministry that GBC was paid more than $3 million to cover the just finished 13th African Games. On Monday, August 19, Sports Minister Mustapha Ussif said in front of the Public Accounts Committee that the state broadcaster had received compensation over $3 million.
Sam George, a committee member, expressed concerns about unpaid obligations to the technical team who worked on the games, and this statement was produced in response. Prof. Alhassan refuted these allegations, adding that the broadcaster only got $105,000, which was meant to support GBC's decision to cease regular programming in order to dedicate an entire channel to the African Games. Prof. Alhassan spoke on GBC.
He said, "I want to assure all Ghanaians in the public that GBC's total benefit from the African Games was $105,000 equivalent, nothing more was paid as a benefit to GBC. And that payment of $105,000 was in support of the fact that we dedicated an entire channel for 24 hours. We suspended normal programming for the GTV Sports Plus, and we dedicated it to the African Games and for our role as the official broadcaster." "Yesterday I was among those who were shocked to learn that the Minister of Youth and Sports said that they have paid GBC in excess of $3 million," he said.