Subventions to the universities are suffering because of collateralisation of GETFund – Otokunor

The Director of Interparty and Civil Society Relations of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Dr. Peter Boamah Otokunor, says that if the government decaps the Ghana Education Trist Fund (GETFUnd), the GETFund should be able to give the government an amount of 300 million Cedis per year for this initiative.

At the moment, he said the Akufo-Addo administration has collateralized the GETFund thereby even affecting the subventions to the universities.

To him, if allocation to the student loans trust Fund is imposed together with decapping of the GETFund, the NDC administration will be able to fund the initiative.

He asured that the NDC administration will find the resources to finance the ‘no academic fees for level 100 students’ initiative.

“We will improve allocation to the student loans trust fund,” he said on the Key Points on TV3 on Saturday, August 17.

“If the government decaps GETFund, the GETFund alone will be able to release 300 million per year for this initiative and to be able to take

“Subventions are suffering because of the collateralization of GETFund, which they spend on frivolous projects and so the funding of this initiative will be the least of our problems.

“We rather have to look at moral hazards and corruption, where people will attempt to create ghost names, so efficiency mechanisms are required to track the numbers.”

Dr. Peter Boamah Otokunor further said that the ‘no academic fees for level 100 students’ initiative was made purposely to cure the challenge of the inability of students to pay for their admission to enter the universities.

He recounted how difficult it is for students to gain a university education due to their inability to pay.

“This policy was made advisedly to cure the major challenge of fees that over 45 students go through,” he said.

For his part, a professor at the University of Ghana Ransford Gyampo said given the fact that some students are unable to pay for their admission fees at the universities, the ‘no academic fees for level 100 students’ will help those needy but brilliant students.

Prof Gyampo says that initially when he heard about the policy announcement he was worried because he thought it would take away the sources of revenue for the universities to run their operations vis-a-vis the dwindling of the government subventions.

However, he said, the assurance by Mr Mahama that government subventions to the universities will be increased and released timely settles the doubt in his mind.

“In a way, I may be tempted to agree with him given what I have seen, we pay fees for people, ” he said on the Key Points on TV3 on Saturday, August 17.

He added “My heartbeat beating because in a way he is taking out a huge chunk of money from the universities to cater for other expenses.

“Over the years govt subventions to universities have dwindled, to the point that money can only pay salaries but universities and it’s running here beyond paying salaries, there should be money to pay for light bills, and water bills. ”

Mr Mahama while explaining the policy proposal said that the ‘no academic fees for level 100 students’ initiative will cost between 270 million and 290 million Cedis.

He assured Ghanaians that his administration would raise money to fund this project.

Addressing a gathering in Juapong on Tuesday, August 13, Mr Mahama said “we have costed it and we approximate that for all first-year students in public tertiary institutions, it should cost anywhere between  270 to about 290 million Ghana Cedis.  Let me tell you something, the president, a few years ago,  his travel budget in nine months amounted to 69 million Cedis, they held one cabinet retreat at the presidency, it cost almost 5 million Cedis.

“There is so much waste in the system and even if you look at the office of the president budget alone you will be able to cut to raise enough money to pay these academic facility user fees for all level hundred students. Do you know the budget for the office of the president? it is 2 billion Cedis every year, it is even now that IMF has come and they have cut it down, at a point it used to be 3 point something billion Cedis every year.”

He added “we do not want, especially in the first year when the students are coming in for the first time for them to go through what we call fee stress, that is why we call it a ‘no fee stress policy’ and so we are saying that we can absorb the academic user fee but it will not affect the subventions of governments to the universities and institutions of higher learning.

“The subvention from the government has kept declining, we are going to increase the subventions but apart from that we will make sure that universities get their subventions on time so that they can balance their budget.”

 

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