The Ministry of Youth and Sports in Ghana has denied knowledge of any para-athletic team travelling to Norway for a marathon event.
Sector minister Mustapha Ussif said neither his Ministry nor the National Sports Authority (NSA) was aware of such trip.
“In this Norway case, there was no request made to either the National Sports Authority or the Ministry of Youth and Sports,” he told journalists at a press conference in Accra.
“We were not aware of any event and the team that went did not represent Ghana as reported.”
News of the absconding of 10 Ghanaian para athletes broke after a letter from the Ministry of National Security to the Sports Ministry and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration was sighted.
The letter noted that the para athletes had travelled to Oslo for the Fjordkraft Bergen City Marathon slated for Saturday, April 27.
But they all failed to show up on the day of the event and even failed to register.
One of them,by name Nana Antwi, was later arrested by Norwegian security officials, attempting to depart the country for Sweden on a one-way train ticket.
Their coach, George Gyamfi Gyasi, is said to have collapsed on Sunday, April 28 and admitted to the Oslo University Hospital, ULLEVAL, but passed away barely three weeks later.
The team is said to have travelled on the authority of the National Paralympic Committee, whose President has since denied ever issuing letters.
“I want to appeal to the people of Ghana that the pictures, the images, the stories that [are] going viral ha[ve] nothing to do with any member or anyone they see in the picture,” Samson Deen, who also doubles as the President of the African Paralympic Committe, stated.
“None of them are or have involved or have or are associated to this people. The letters that was sent with my signature on it were forged by these guys which is Ernest Ayisi and Theodore Mawuli who led, who did all these forged documents, fraudulently used my documents to acquire visas for some people who are very unknown to the Paralympic family.”
