The Ghana Basketball Association (GBBA) will on December 12-22, hold the maiden National Basketball Championship in Cape Coast in the Central region.

The 10-day event, under the theme rallying for development, would take place at the Cape Coast Sports Stadium Basketball Courts and the University of Cape Coast basketball courts.

In all, 36 teams made up of male and female teams drawn from the Ashanti, Brong Ahafo, Central, Eastern, Northern, Upper East, Upper West, Volta, Western and the Greater Accra regions will be in action.

Also, teams drawn from the Ghana Education Service (GES), Ghana Universities Sports Association (GUSA) and the Ghana Technical Universities Sports Association (GHATUSA) as well as the Ghana Armed Forces, Ghana Police Service, Ghana National Fire Service, Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and the Ghana Prisons Service (GPS) would also be in action.

There would also be exhibition games involving wheelchair and deaf basketball teams and veterans.

In a chat with the Times Sports, the GBBA president, Mr Ato Van Ess noted that the championship was his outfit way of promoting the sport in the country, while looking at making it an annual event on the calendar of the association.

That aside, he disclosed that the technical team would use it as a platform to select players to form the nucleus of the national basketball team to begin preparations for the upcoming Africa Games next year.

"This is the first time we are coming out with a programme like this. We hope to make it an annual event to help us maintain a strong and formidable national and regional teams."

He said the association was embarking ona sponsorship drive to raise revenue to run its activities and appealed to corporate bodies to come to their aid.

He said there would be cash prizes, trophies and medals at stake for the winners.