Government hiding true cost of Free SHS over fear of being exposed for corruption - Apaak

A Deputy Ranking Member on the Education Committee Dr. Clement Apaak, has raised questions over the amount of money the Finance Minister presented as what the government had invested in the Free Senior High School policy since its inception and what was captured in the documents he provided.

Presenting the mid-year budget review before Parliament on Monday, July 24, 2022, the Minister stated that ¢5.3 billion has been invested into the policy so far.

According to him, this investment has benefited 1,261,495 Ghanaian children.

“It has been at the core of our national transformation efforts since 2017. We have invested ¢5.3 billion to enable 1,261,495 Ghanaian children to access secondary education under the Free SHS programme at the end 2021 to improve access to education.”

“Out of the 571,892 registered JHS candidates, 555,353, representing 97.1 percent, were placed into SHS this year.”

But Dr. Apaak says the Minister presented two different figures, and he is wondering what could have influenced that.

The lawmaker is therefore demanding answers as to why the Minister in his speech quoted a different figure and presented another figure of Ghc7 billion in the official documents he presented to the House.

"Ken Ofori-Atta, 2022 Mid-Year Budget Review Speech: 5.3B invested in fSHS at end of 2021 (2017-2021), paragraph 60, page 33.

"2021 Mid-Year Budget Review Statement: 7.62B invested to implement fSHS since its inception (2017-2021), paragraph 284, page 49.
Something is wrong!”

Dr. Apaak stressed that the government must be accountable and transparent to Ghanaians on the actual cost of the policy and stop engaging in the current approach of quoting different figures.

In his view, the government could be hiding vital information from the people and has challenged the Minister to come clean if there was nothing to hide.