Former Deputy Finance Minister and Member of Parliament for Atiwa East, Abena Osei Asare, has raised concerns over the government’s decision to uncap the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) in the 2025 budget.
According to her, the rationale behind this move remains questionable, particularly in relation to its implications for Ghana’s education financing and adherence to constitutional provisions.
In an interview on the Citi Breakfast Show on Wednesday, March 12, Abena Osei Asare argued that reallocating GETFund resources to finance other expenditures could be deemed unconstitutional.
She expressed skepticism over the government’s approach, suggesting that the move might not align with the core purpose of GETFund as stipulated in its founding legislation.
Her concerns stem from the announcement made by Finance Minister, Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson, during his presentation of the 2025 budget on Tuesday, March 11.
In his statement, Ato Forson disclosed that the government would be uncapping GETFund as part of a broader restructuring of expenditures, particularly under oil revenue.
However, Abena Osei Asare took issue with this decision, stating that the government’s justification for the move lacked clarity and coherence.
She pointed out that GETFund was primarily established to support educational infrastructure development, rather than to cover recurrent expenditures such as the provision of food and other consumables under the Free Senior High School (SHS) programme.
“The government cannot say that the uncapped GETFund is what they are going to use to fund the Free SHS because when you look at the GETFund act, it is more of infrastructure and the Free SHS is more of goods and services because we need to pay for food and other stuff which are more of consumption.
“If you tell us that you are uncapping GETFund and you are going to use that to fund Free SHS, it is neither here nor there. We were using oil revenue to pay but when you look at the 2025 budget, every expenditure we made with oil revenue in 2024 has been taken off and channeled into The Big Push meanwhile we don’t know what it involves.”
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