Education Minister, Dr Yaw Adutwum
The Minority in parliament has hinted it would drag education minister, Dr Yaw Adutwum to parliament for questioning on the reported cases of corruption in the implementation of the Free SHS program.
It follows the invitation to more than fifty headteachers and non-teaching staff in the Ashanti region for their roles in the supply of foods for the government’s flagship program.
Although the minority has welcomed the probe, they believe a forensic audit would expose some powerful forces who are benefitting from the corruption in the Free SHS programme.
Deputy ranking member on the education committee, Dr Clement Apaak in an interview said, “you can be sure that as we are preparing to resume on the 18th of this month, a lot of questions have been filed to the minister on education generally and the shortcomings to the implementation of the Free SHS in particular, that I can assure you.”
As to whether the invitation by the CID was in the right direction, he intimated “we can say better late than never. So, yes it’s a step in the right direction. But the point I’m making is that this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are bigger and much more shocking issues to be unveiled should a forensic audit be initiated into the implementation of the program vis a vis the resources to ensure we get value for money, and that is the point in making.
“There can never be smoke without fire. Yes, they named some schools, bursars, and headmasters, but they are just at the lower level, there are those who are higher up and we need to find them, hold them accountable and let them refund the monies for better use by the nation as we look at fixing what is wrong with our nation. This is an area that we want to fix as well,” he said.
“Meanwhile, executive director for the Africa Education Watch Kofi Asare said the development calls for enhanced supervision to ensure that allocations for the Freo SHS program are used for the intended purposes.”