The Minister of Education, Yaw Osei-Adutwum has ordered 46 Colleges of Education to pay back some GHC 6.8 million the government paid for their internet access through the Free Senior High School (Free SHS) accounts.
In a July 23, 2021 letter written to the Director-General of the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission, the education minister wrote: “The original cost of GHC 6, 824,000.00 paid for the 46 Colleges of Education will be shared for the colleges to pay.”
According to Adutwum, upon a review of the contract for the provision of internet services to pre-tertiary institutions, he noticed that colleges of education were benefiting from the internet services that are paid for by the Free SHS.
“In order to free the Free SHS allocation…Colleges that have already benefited from the Busy Internet service provision will refund the initial cost of installation paid back to Free SHS,” the education minister wrote.
The entire deal is raising suspicion within the telecom sector where the sudden blocking of teacher training colleges from the existing arrangement with Busy Internet-the Internet Service Provider (ISP) has been flagged as not smelling right.
First of all, the amount of GHC 6.8 million slapped on the colleges is seen as outrageous.
Secondly, Whatsup News is gathering that Busy Internet is owned by people linked to the Akufo Addo administration and that the move is to divert more funds to the private ISP.
Whatsup News is still following a paper trail that promises to be another scandal to rock the Akufo Addo administration.
Source: whatsupnewsghana