The Bui Power Authority (BPA), has ended the Bui Talents Development Programme, selecting additional five young talented footballers in the dam’s operational enclave to be trained by the John Accra-based Paintsil Football Academy.
Mr. Samuel Kofi Dzamesi, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the BPA initiated the programme and entered a three-year partnership with the Academy to organise football competition among the 16 major communities around the dam’s enclave.
The communities are spread across the Banda District of Bono, and the Bole-Bambio District of the Savannah Regions.
Under the agreement, signed in 2021, the Academy founded by John Paintsil, a former key player of the national team, scouts, selects and groom footballing talents in the area.
With the selection of Baah Elisha and Samuel Adjei, natives of Gbao, Joel Fumbio from Teselima, Dicey Bediako from Banda Boase and Abdul Mohammed Kashif, a native of Jogbio, the programme had so far enrolled 12 footballers into the academy.
The players were among the more than 200 young and talented players drawn from the major communities who participated in a gala match organised by the BPA in partnership with the Academy and held at Jama in the Bole-Bambio District to run-off the programme.
In an interview with the media on the side-lines of the closing session of the programme, Engineer Opoku Acheampong, the Director Human and Natural Resources, BPA said the Authority was extremely excited and satisfied about the commitment and enthusiasm demonstrated by the communities towards the programme.
He also lauded the commitment of the Academy in helping to unearth and groom the footballing talents of the young people in the dam’s operational enclave.
“We are very excited, and our chief executive is very appreciative to the communities for their commitment to the programme”, Eng. Acheampong stated, saying “despite their going through the nurturing the boys are also having education as well”.
“The main objective is impacting lives and from what we have seen and from the reports we are getting from the academy, boys are doing excellently well and getting them better options are also there” and applauded the BPA CEO for the initiative.
Mr. Paintsil described the players’ performances, commitments and discipline as excellent, saying at the academy the talents were exposed to professional training programmes and routines in preparation for the numerous opportunities ahead of them in the world of football.
