Free SHS will be funded from heritage fund – Osafo Marfo

MARFO-VETSSenior Minister, Yaw Osafo Marfo has hinted that the government’s Free Senior High School policy will be funded by the Heritage Fund.

The Akufo-Addo government plans to fully implement the policy from September.

President Akufo-Addo over the weekend said the implementation of his much touted campaign policy was on course stating that “by free SHS, we [government] mean that in addition to tuition which is already free, there will be no admission fees, no library fees, no science centre fees, no computer lab fees, no examination fees, no utility fees, there will be free textbooks, free boarding and free meals, and day students will get a meal at school for free.”

The president’s announcement of the full enrollment of the policy was, however, met with stern skepticism as he did not disclose its source of funding.

The head of Economics at IMANI, Patrick Stephenson said the policy is likely to face challenges due to the country’s wobbling financial status.

“I think that’s been the problem to the extent that we have not seen sufficient clarity from the current government [and] is making it very difficult to appreciate what the intended objectives are,” he told Accra-based Citi FM.

But speaking to Journalists on Tuesday on the sidelines of a Graphic-Stanbic breakfast forum, Mr. Marfo down-played the apprehension caused by the president’s failure to disclose the source of funding for the policy.

According to him, it will be funded by the Heritage Fund and that the government is taking a critical look at the Fund to clear all the legal bottlenecks that will make it possible to be used as the main source of funding for the audacious policy.

“We are going to look at the Heritage Fund—the Heritage [Fund] implies for the future. We want to introduce…and the president mentioned it last week [Free Senior High School] and it is likely to be Funded through the Petroleum Act [Heritage Fund,” he said.

That being the case the government will amend the Act to allocate some portions of the fund to the implementation of the policy, he added.

A Deputy Education Minister in the erstwhile Mahama administration said the policy is doable after scathingly condemning its feasibility during electioneering in 2012.

“It is doable if we can find the resource,” he told Nii Arday Clegg, former host of Morning Starr on Monday, adding: “And that is why I was hazarding a guess that perhaps they want to make substantial savings on the construction of these new secondary schools and then channel those savings into progressively free programme.”

-Starrfmonline

ABOUT: Nana Kwesi Coomson

[email protected]

An Entrepreneur, Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporate Communications Executive and Philanthropist. Editor-in-Chief of www.233times.com. A Senior Journalist with Ghanaian Chronicle Newspaper. An alumnus of Adisadel College where he read General Arts. His first degree is in Bachelor of Arts - Political Science (major) and History (minor) from the University of Ghana. He holds MSc in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Energy with Public Relations (PR) from the Robert Gordon University in the United Kingdom. He is a 2018 Mandela Washington Fellow who studied at Clark Atlanta University in USA on the Business and Entrepreneurship track.

View all posts by: Nana Kwesi Coomson  

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

ABOUT 233TIMES

233times is a Ghanaian media house which serves as a major source of exclusive interviews ,music and video downloads, news and more.

233times reports on major events,news covering entertainment, politics, sports, business, technology, etc from within Ghana, Africa and beyond.

We have a platform for the amateur artistes to portray their staggering talents ...more...

CONTACT US

For further enquiries, please contact us via our contact us page link: CONTACT

WE ON SOCIAL MEDIA. FOLLOW US


To advertise with us or make enquiries, please visit 233times.net/advertise or call Selorm (Selorm) | Selorm (Nana Kwesi)