No Cash For All 200 Day Schools – Mahama

President John Mahama has admitted that even though the construction of 200 community day senior high schools was attainable, his government might not be able to complete the project it had promised Ghanaians.

'The target of 200 schools before the end of my first term in office is attainable, but there are budgetary constraints. Meanwhile, the programme is on course and the schools are coming up nicely.

'We have awarded contract for the first 50 schools and most of them are in the advanced stages of completion and those are the ones I am commissioning,' the president asserted.

He pointed out that 23 of the schools being financed by the World Bank had also been awarded and that the project had started off very well.

'For this financial year, 2015, we have awarded another 50, the sites have been handed over to the contractors and they are supposed to start work. So as I speak, 123 of the 200 schools have been awarded on contract,' he disclosed.

He posited that the government intended to award another 50 next year but they would depend on budgetary issues.

President Mahama was speaking in an interview with Sekondi's Twin City Radio in the Western Region, prior to the commissioning of one of the 200 schools located at Bamiankor in the Nzema East Municipality of the region.

He pointed out that the NDC government's free senior high school programme was not exclusive to day SHS students and that those in the boarding schools would be added in due course.

He added that the 1992 Constitution states that the government shall introduce progressively free secondary education adding, 'When we launched it we made it clear that we would start with day students and that we would progressively expand it to cover boarding students.'

From Emmanuel Opoku, Takoradi