Minister of Sports, Sunday Dare said his ministry is in touch with the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 over the forthcoming 2020 National Sports Festival in Edo state.
The sports minister disclosed this on Channels Sports on Monday.
He stated that the NCDC and PTF were among the 11 man committee who inspected the sporting facilities as well as COVID-19 centers in Benin, Edo state.
He said the chance of hosting the National Sports Festival this year is high.
Dare said, “I can say that our expectations is that the National Sports Festival happens this year and I take my cue from the meeting of the National Council on Sports that is the highest sports decision making body in the country. We had a virtual meeting about three months ago and the council unanimously agreed that the sports festival should hold in 2020 between now and perhaps December.
“We immediately set up a 11 man committee that went to Benin to check the sporting infrastructure, the COVID structure in place to see how the protocol are set out and they have worked within 30 days; the report submitted to the sports ministry and an implementation committee is looking at it”.
He further said, “Recall that on the team, we had the NCDC representative, the health ministry and representative from PTF. They did a thorough job. What they have done is to recommend that we will be looking at between now and December, what the possibilities are and things that should be in place.
“I think for us, the most important is working with the PTF, NCDC and health ministry looking at the numbers, we are hitting a spike in the country before we can return to sports, we must flatten that curve, the numbers must start to come down”.
“The ministry of sports will be properly guided before we take a final decision”, he added
