General News of Friday, 16 July 2021
Source: 3news.com
2021-07-16
Deputy Minister of Education and Member of Parliament for Assin South, John Ntim Fordjour
Deputy Minister of Education and Member of Parliament for Assin South, John Ntim Fordjour has justified the award of a sole-sourced contract to Kingdom Books and Stationery to supply West African Education Council (WAEC) past questions for Senior High School candidates.
The government spent approximately 34 million Ghana Cedis in 2020 for this purpose and this is said to have informed a “tremendous” performance over the past years.
Speaking to Berla Mundi on TV3 New Day, the deputy minister said the government was compelled by some circumstances to sole-source the contract.
“WAEC owns the copyright to all their questions, materials and examiner’s reports, if there is any publisher out there who without legal authority from WAEC is reproducing any WAEC material that publisher is doing so at the breach of the law. And this must be put in context, the only company that WAEC has given that legal authority to reproduce their past questions and examiner’s report is Kingdom Books. As and when other publishers are able to obtain the legal right to reproduce WAEC material, competitive tender must be engaged. But as we speak the only company which has the sole right to reproduce is Kingdom Books”, he explained. Member of Parliament for Builsa South, Clement Apaak, who was also on the programme demanded for documents to back the Minister’s claim that Kingdom Books and Stationery has an exclusive right to produce WASSCE past questions.