​​​​​Gov't Must Resuscitate Dying Free SHS With Ghc1Billion Annually—MP

Mr. Peter Nortsu Kotoe

The Minority Spokesperson on Education, who is also the Ranking Member on the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education, Mr. Peter Nortsu Kotoe is asking Akufo-Addo government to fear God and not destroy the future of school children with the dying free SHS policy.

Speaking on SPACE FM in Sunyani, Mr. Nortsu Kotoe, who is also Member of Parliament for Akatsi North in the Volta Region said government need to make available over One Billion Ghana Cedis every year for this program to succeed.

"If you look at the educational budget, the Free SHS is taking so much that other sectors are suffering, especially the Basic Education Sector, no attention is being paid to the Basic Education sector again , because all the resources are going into the Free SHS policy," he stated.

He continued, "one of the challenges facing our Senior High Schools is lack of government commitment of releasing money early because many of the boarding schools who had final year students were paying school fees and they were using that money to run the schools, now they are gone and the government is not going to take any school fees again, and government have no money to run the schools again."

The Minority Spokesperson on Education said they cautioned the government about the manner and way the policy was being implemented.

“Two years down the line, it is now becoming apparent that resource to finance the Free SHS is becoming difficult to mobilise,” he said.

Mr Nortsu Kotoe said the government deceived Ghanaians the oil money would be used to finance the Free SHS policy, but last year, the minority realized that the budgetary allocation for education was all used to run the program which should have been used to address the infrastructure gap.

According to him, NPP government blew the cash on recurrent expenditure which does not sit in the Petroleum Act.

Mr. Siaka Stevens, Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education, who is the MP for Jaman North Constituency in the Bono Region and Deputy regional Minister who also spoke on the same show said he is happy that the Minority is not accusing the Akuffo Addo led administration of misappropriate the funds approved by parliament, meant for the Free SHS on “kyenkyenga”.

According to Mr. Siaka Stevens, the Free SHS is not a threat to the country’s economy like the NDC are.