Iron-F Tablet & Lime Juice Consumption Rock This Year's  Mepe Under-13 And 15 Inter  Schools Football Tourney…As Parents, Guardians Blame GES

THE decision by the Ghana Education Service (GES) to allow the use of Digital Weighing Machine to determine the age barriers for the selection of students to qualify for the currently ongoing Inter-schools Football Tournament at Mepe in the North Tongu District of the Volta Region has angered scores of concerned citizens, parents, teachers and residents in the town.

According to some aggrieved residents, they are not in support of the GES’s decision to allow sports officials to use the machine to weigh students, therefore, using the body weight scales as the requirement to determine their ages before allowing them to participate in the football tournament.

This is because the preference of the use of weighing scales to selecting students has seen some already selected students for the games to resort to massive consumption of Iron-F Tablet and lime juice including other harmful drugs which are dangerous to their lives.

The concerned citizens and teachers blamed the situation on the GES. 

In an interview with Soireenews.com following a recent visit by the online portal to Mepe during the tournament, scores of the participating students in the games held at both Mepe Roman Catholic (RC) Junior High and Primary Schools confirmed taking some drugs to reduce their weights in order to meet the requirement for the tournament.

"Look, [referring to this journalist], yes it is the fact, because we don't have any option than to resort to take the drugs and lime juice as an antidote to reduce our weights because we are being selected by our schools’ sport masters to represent our schools in the games. 

"So if we don't take the Iron-F tablet and lime juice to reduce our weights, we would be disqualified by the officials. Sometimes when who take the Iron-F tablet and other related drugs, we become very weak in the wake of the games but we have to force ourselves to play.” 

"We are advising that if immediate measures are not taken by the government of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to stop the GES from using the Digital Weighing Machine to determine the age barriers for the selection of students to participate in the games it would kill the talents of the sport students," some of the students who spoke to this journalist on condition of anonymity on Thursday, May 4, 2023, underscored.

That notwithstanding, a business man at Mepe (name withheld) disclosed that he was in his shop on Monday, May 1, 2023, when some students both (males and females) approached him and requested that they were looking for lime juice to buy.

"Immediately, I became surprised and asked them that at their ages why would they looking for lime juice to buy and for what reason.  And to my surprise, the students said the lime juice helps them to reduce their weight in order to qualify to be selected to play in the inter-schools football tourney,” they explained.

According the business man, his investigations revealed that the lime juice was not the only drink the students take in to reduce their weights, but they usually at the period of sport activities equally consume Iron-F tablet.

The Iron-F tablet is an iron supplement used to treat or prevent low blood levels of iron (such as those caused by anemia or pregnancy). Iron is an important mineral that the body needs to produce red blood cells and keeps you in good health.

But, he pointed out that the consumption of the Iron-F table was commonly being used by sports discipline students whose ages were between 13 and 15 during sporting activities to reduce weight.

Against this background, the business man called on the government of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to impress upon the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Youth and Sports to investigate the matter.