Government hasn’t demonstrated there’s no cash to pay suppliers – Apaak

The Deputy Ranking Member of the Education Committee in Parliament, Dr. Clement Apaak has said the government has not demonstrated that there is no money to pay suppliers.

This comes on the back of other suppliers for the Free Senior High School Policy threatening to demonstrate over the government’s inability to pay them.

Commenting on the development, the Builsa South lawmaker stated that the government’s inability to communicate in clear terms on why it has not paid suppliers means there is money to pay.

“I’ve said that between 2017 and 2023 we have allocated 11.9 billion to finance the programme for 2017 to 2021. According to the Finance Minister the allocation of 7.62 billion, 5.23 billion have been spent which means that there is a surplus of about 2 billion.

“When you listen to the Minister for Education he also says out of the 7.62 billion, 5.1 billion have been used which means that there is a surplus of over 2 billion. So if we have all of these surplus and with all these allocations and Akufo-Addo have not told us, Bawumia have not told us, Ofori-Atta have not told us, Adutwum have not told us that Ghana is broke,” Dr. Apaak stated.

He continued: “So we cannot pay food suppliers, we cannot pay school uniform suppliers debts, we cannot pay cost of ICT, the cost of library, the cost of maintenance, the cost of ID cards. Therefore, Ghanaians come and let’s sit and discuss the way forward so we can all help for the programme to move smoothly, how can we claim that there is no money.”

The deputy ranking member also reiterated the need for urgent audit on the Free Senior High School policy books.

“As far as the government has not come to tell us that there is no money, we have to assume that it’s the government that deliberately doesn’t want to pay. There is money rather they are using it for different things that is why they are not using it for the programme. So I am calling for an audit,” Dr. Apaak requested.