President of Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS), Mrs Cecilia Kwakye Coffie has bemoaned the huge debts which have engulfed the activities of Secondary Schools in Ghana due to the current administration’s failure to fulfil its financial obligation.
According to the worried CHASS President, government has not been able to pay for the Absolved fee and Feeding Grants for the second and third terms, bemoaning that the situation will be worst in the next academic year as schools vacate next week.
Speaking on Okay FM’s Ade Akye Abia Morning Show, Mrs. Cecilia Kwakye Coffie hinted that, the whole year, government scholarship has not been paid to the secondary schools.
She again complained that with President Mahama’s Progressive Free Scholarship, only one term has been paid to the schools but added that even with that, the amount given to the schools to run the scholarship has been reduced.
The president of CHASS insisted that “the feeding fee of GH¢3.30 per student per day for three meals is woefully inadequate, while there is a tax component of 17.5% VAT and 3% withholding tax.”
“This has resulted in huge debts in schools bothering the management of the secondary schools. Food suppliers have stopped their supplies and we have been borrowing to feed the students”, she lamented.
Recounting the total debt owed to the secondary schools, Mrs Cecilia Kwakye Coffie revealed that “on the average, government owes every school Gh¢150,000 and the schools are about 500”.
“If we don’t take care, this can cause commotion in the schools…water and electricity bills are problems we are also facing in the schools”, she stressed.
CHASS President however indicated that nothing positive has come out of the several meetings they have had with the government.
“…schools cannot reopen for the 2016/17 academic year which would affect secondary school education in the country immensely,” she added.
[email protected] 
(Selorm) | 
(Nana Kwesi)