By: Richard Mullah
National Sports Association (NSA) has on the 27th of October, 2022 assured robust improvement of sports across all sectors at the weekly press conference held at the Youyi Building in Freetown.
The Director for Sustainable Sport and Participation, National Sports Authority, Steven Keifala said they want to ensure that all sports bodies within the country renew their registration activities.
He encouraged sports NGOs and sports organizations to renew their sports registration activities every year with the National Sports Authority. The Director was intimidated that twelve indicators can satisfy the criteria for the renewal of registration, and “the key among them is for you to ensure that you provide to us your sports calendar for the year, the list of your executive members, whether you are holding meetings”.
Steven Keifala said they want to improve on sports funding, which according to him sport funding has been a major problem over the years. “The government alone is the one doing everything,” said Steven. He also said they want to ensure they improve on sports facilities, rehabilitation and construction of sports facilities across the country.
Steven Keifala is also intimidated that they want to promote sports education and research in the universities and schools by providing sports data that tells about sport education activities.
He also said that they have been able to engage the Falaba District, which according to him is a new district without any organised sports structure, and they have approached the NSA to help design a plan on how they can produce a District team. He also intimated that they have tried to develop a modem where they would want to see every district have a district sports club that would have all the different sports discipline under one umbrella.
The Executive Director of Sierra Leone Seed Certification Agency, Dr. Robert T.M Chakanda also engaged the media about the Seed Certification Agency. He said the Agency is a new agency that was established in 2015 and its main objective is to control and regulate all seeds activities in the country. He further said they are trying to drive towards food security through seed security, according to him that is their basic aim and objective. The Director said they have encouraged all private sector involvement in seed production and also in the first year they have tried to register everyone.
Dr. Robert Chakanda said that when he took up office he was faced with many challenges, and he highlighted some of these challenges.
Chronic importation of seeds into the country was one of them. “Every year Sierra Leone has been importing Millions of Dollars, hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of seeds, ” he said. According to Dr Chakanda, their main focus is on rice seeds. He added that every year Sierra Leone imports seed from different countries like Burkina Faso, Mail and Nigeria, which he said that they were not sustainable.
Polififation of seed actors was another challenge that he highlighted. He said seed actors were all over the place and they were not under any control. “Even road contractors, building contractors and diamond cutters and exporters were getting seed licenses,” he lamented.
Dr. Chakanda revealed to the press that some fake companies will supply rice seeds that were not doing any good to the country.
According to Dr. Robert, they have reduced the importation of rice seeds to 50%, and this year 2022 no rice seed was imported into Sierra Leone.