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The Ministry Of Youth and Sports (MOYS) has begun investigations into the abandoned new race course project at Borteyman, near the Affordable Housing Project site in the Greater Accra Region.

The project was abandoned midway even though an amount of USD 1.750 Million was disbursed for the total construction of the Race Course by the Government in 2006.

Mr Samuel Nii Armah Turkson, Secretary to the Board of Stewards of the Accra Turf Club, in a petition to the Minister of Youth and Sports, accused the contractors, Zakhem Construction and the consultant, Cascade Development Company of circumventing laid down rules in the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed on February 26, and the Relocation Agreement also on May 24, 2006 respectively for getting a new race course constructed.

He described it as a total breach of contract, which must be investigated since all efforts to address the issues proved futile.

The need to investigate the abandoned project came about when a delegation from the Ministry, led by Nana Adjoa Adutwum, Monitoring and Evaluation Coordinator and Doctor Owusu Ansah, Technical Director at the Ministry paid a fact finding visit to the site to investigate the allegation of breach of contract levelled against the contractors.

Dr Ansah assured the club officials that he would do all he can to ensure that their concerns are addressed and demanded copies of the MOU and the Relocation Agreement signed between the parties.

Mr Turkson expressed surprise that despite the role assigned to the President of Ghana in the constitution of the Accra Turf Club, to give his ascent to all race meetings as Chief Patron, the Presidential Stand and the VIP car parks had not been provided.

He said structures to help operationalise racing activities was not in place to encourage people to patronise the race course, creating the impression that horse racing was dead.

“There is no public stand, which is the basic structure to accommodate punters as well as officials and media men. The spectators are left to stand on the sun, whilst the media don’t have a place to mount their equipment.”

He said apart from the irregular supply of water and electricity, the office block, weighing room, car parks, veterinary and maintenance offices, as well as the tarring of the whole compound, had not been done.

He said the toilet facility had been completed but cannot be used, whiles only 100 out of the 200 stables to keep the horses, as stated in the MOU, had been completed.

“More seriously, the perimeter fence wall was broken at several places posing a serious security threat and obviously making the collection of entry fees virtually impossible”, he said.