Parliament adopts committee's report

Accra, June 29, GNA- Parliament on Tuesday adopted two reports from the Public Accounts Committee on the Performance Audit Report of the Auditor-General on the Functional Literacy Programme and the Supply and Distribution of Textbooks to Senior Secondary Schools (SSS). On the Functional Literacy Programme, the Public Accounts Committee said conclusions from the audit showed that the programme was of a limited scale compared to the illiterate population in the country. "With the present objective of training 200,000 learners a year, it would theoretically take 45 years to train the nine million illiterates in the country as shown by the 2000 census."

"The high illiteracy rate is partly due to the low enrolment and dropouts in basic schools," the report added.

The Committee observed that the Non-Formal Education Division (NFED) of the Ministry of Education was able to turn one million people literate by the end of the first year.

It said out of the one million people, the Division was able to educate 970,000 people from 1992 to 1997.

The Committee has recommended that the Ministry should review its budgetary allocation to the Division to enable the NFED operate effectively. More

On the Supply and Distribution of Textbooks to Senior Secondary Schools (SSS), the Committee said the objective of the Ghana Education Service (GES) was to maintain a student-textbook ratio of 1:1. "The Audit found that the GES was unable to meet the target." the Committee said.

It said the inability to meet the target was attributed to inadequate planning in the development of textbooks, insufficient funding and ineffective procurement procedures.

The Committee recommended that the new procurement manual developed by the GES should be reviewed to ensure that it conformed to the new Procurement Act of 2003, (Act. 663).

It also recommended that the Ministry of Education and Finance should ensure that the Textbook User Fee Account be reimbursed with over 461 million cedis, which was misapplied as at September, 1999. In another development, the House adopted the Report of the Committee on Subsidiary Legislation on the Civil Proceedings (Fees and Allowances) (amendment) Rules, 2004 (C.I. 45).

The Committee observed that the object of the instruments under reference was to revise upwards fees and allowances payable by parties in relation to the proceedings in both the lower and the Superior courts.