A Deputy Ranking Member on the Education Committee Dr. Clement Apaak, has questioned how much money the Finance Minister presented as what the government had invested into the Free Senior High School policy since its commencement and what was captured in the reports he gave.
Presenting the mid-year budget review before Parliament on Monday, July 24, 2022, the Minister expressed that ¢5.3 billion has been invested into the policy until this point.
As per him, this investment has helped 1,261,495 Ghanaian school children.
“It has been at the center of our national transformation efforts beginning around 2017. We have invested ¢5.3 billion to empower 1,261,495 Ghanaian children to get to access secondary education under the Free SHS program toward the end 2021 to further improve access to education.”
“Out of the 571,892 enlisted JHS candidates , 555,353, representing 97.1 percent, were put into SHS this year.”
Be that as it may, Dr. Apaak noted the Minister introduced two distinct figures, and he wondered what might have affected that.
The legislator is in this manner requesting replies concerning why the Minister in his discourse cited a different figure and presented another figure of Ghc7 billion in the official source documents he presented to the House.
Ken Ofori-Atta, 2022 Mid-Year Budget Review Speech: 5.3B put resources into fSHS at end of 2021 (2017-2021), passage 60, page 33.
“2021 Mid-Year Budget Review Statement: 7.62B invested to carry out fSHS since its beginning (2017-2021), passage 284, page 49.
Something is wrong !”
Dr. Apaak reiterated that the government should be responsible and straightforward to Ghanaians on the true cost of the policy and stop engaging in the current approach of citing various figures.
In his view, the government could be concealing essential data from the people and has provoked the Minister to tell the truth assuming that all in all if he has nothing to hide .