Re: Getfund Students Stranded Abroad

I write to comment on the issue of GETfund students stranded abroad. It's quite surprising how our leaders can be that wicked and incompetent in the positions they are appointed to man. It's a known fact that Scholarship Secretariat owes six months arrears of stipends to Ghanaian students in Cuba and other places.

Is the Minister in charge of scholarships at the presidency saying those students and their parents are falsely crying wolf? By the way, how can that minister conclude that students in Cuba don't have money problems because even some of them send about 200 dollars home monthly? How does he know that?

Does he run a money transfer service? We now have over 300 students in Cuba, if one of them sends money home and the minister knows about it because they are related or for whatever reason, doesn't mean the rest of the students do the same. Mr. Minister, if you don't know what you are talking about, don't comment! You're insulting yourself.

Most of these students are very depressed and frustrated now, unable to buy basic necessities as they have run out of money for 6 months now, and are currently overwhelmed with debt. Very soon, we'll hear on the news that Ghanaian students are been attacked or arrested for their inability to pay debt.

This is the kind of humiliation and unfair treatment that a democratically elected government is giving to its citizens- assets of the future.

It is only a fool whose testicles are stepped upon twice. There are many Ghanaians who studied in abroad and refused to go back home. Found out why, and it's because our government maltreated them and didn't consider them important. Politicians who think they are wiser than technocrats.

Before our brothers and sisters where shipped off to their various destinations to pursue further education, they had signed a contract with scholarship secretariat to pay them monthly stipends for the duration of their course, and in turn, they will work exclusively for the government of Ghana for a number of years.

This is not happening now. Last academic year, there was word that stipends were delayed for several months. What I see is a breach of contract on the part of Scholarship Secretariat. And the funny thing is that, for weeks now, no one answers phone calls at the Secretariat! I guess they'll come out to tell us the phones are broken down.

Why on Earth will you send 250 citizens abroad to receive basic medical training abroad when we could do better at home for less? Who does this in the 21st century? Can anybody see how so prudent our government is with cash?

It is reported that the our government has to pay a lot of money for these students, apart from the unusually high tuition fee, they pay for books, pencils, ridiculously high health insurance, food, etc. Aba!

Our people are distressed. Very soon, they'll run out of means of communication. We got to know they are suffering because they managed to get a few coins to call us or write to us. When those coins run out, we'll not hear from them again.

Maybe the government will be willing to bring home their corpses of our fellow Ghanaians when they finally die of hunger.

Taflatse, we need a leader who is not short-sighted. Let's think beyond manifesto promises.Let's think of our country in decades to come. Ghana is for all of us. We need to get everybody involved and make them feel INVOLVED.

I doubt the US government, or any other serious government, will treat any of its citizens like this. That's why they became what they are right now. Those who went abroad go in the interest of the State, at the long run.

Government of Ghana be responsible for God sake!
Yawa K. Dogwood,
Cape Coast.