Deputy Ranking Member on the Education of Parliament, Dr. Clement Apaak
A Deputy Ranking Member on the Education of Parliament, Dr. Clement Apaak, has taken a swipe at Deputy Education Minister, Rev John Ntim Fordjour for justifying the government’s decision to procure past questions for Senior High School students.
The Deputy Ranking Member had questioned why the government has just a year bought a unit cost of the questions at Ghc59 and Ghc78, describing it as a fishy deal.
But the Deputy Education Minister that the books were procured in 2019 at Gh₵71.25 (per unit cost) contrary to the Gh₵59.00 cost stated by Dr. Apaak.
He also maintained there has been a “reasonable” increase of 9.4% (due to factors such as inflation) which in turn has increased the cost of the book to Gh₵78.00.
“There’s no way you can go anywhere on the market to get this book at a cost less than Gh₵200, but we have put together all four core subjects in addition to the Chief Examiners report, in a 457 paged document at a cost of Gh₵71.25 per student,” he said.
He further clarified that a total of 361,765 books were procured for Senior High School students in 2019, in contrast with an initial 536,000 figure presented in Parliament as the total number of books procured. He explained that the initial figure was an error, which is being rectified.
But reacting, Dr. Clement Apaak says he has checked with the Clerk at the Table Office in Parliament regarding figures in the answers to his questions captured in the order paper of Thursday, July 14th, 2021 being contested on radio and TV by a Deputy Minister for Education, and can conclude the Deputy peddled lies.
According to him, ”the Clerk has confirmed that there are no mistakes or typos with regard to the figures the Minister presented on the floor of Parliament as captured in his answers. Comparing the figures in the official letter from the Minister for Education conveying his answers to the Clerk with what appeared in the answers he presented on the floor (in the order paper), no difference, same!”
He added: So, indeed in 2020, ”government procured 568,755 past questions at a total cost of 33,644,043.00ghc This works out to 59ghc per unit, and in 2021 government bought 446,958 units of past questions at a unit cost of 78ghc. This works out to a total cost of 34,862,412.00ghc.
In total government has spent 68,513,455.75 in 2020/2021. The above figures are the figures conveyed by the Minister in a letter to the Clark of Parliament.”