Gov’t’s failure to complete Mahama’s E-blocks disappointing – Nortsu-Kotoe

The Minority in Parliament have described as disappointing the failure of the Akufo-Addo administration to complete all the E-block senior high school project started by the Mahama administration.

Peter Nortsu-Kotoe Member of Parliament for Akatsi North and Ranking member on the Education Committee of Parliament, wondered whether the current government has love for the people when this project has not been completed.

“I am disappointed, I am at a loss because if you know that your predecessor has invested public funds, why do you abandon the projects? Is it hatred for the people or it is love. This one is complete hatred,” he told journalists after touring some of the uncompleted projects on Tuesday October 19.

The Minority have said they would cause a probe into the 1.5 billion dollar security that was approved for the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) to undertake completion of critical educational Facility.

Parliament in 2018 approved the $1.5 billion loan for the GETFund to support the development of educational infrastructure.

This was amidst objections raised by the Minority.

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) lawmakers insisted that they could not back the loan agreement because they were unaware of the lender of the facility.

Dr. Anthony Osei Akoto, the then Minister of Monitoring and Evaluation, said the minority members had been informed about the lender.

He went ahead to announce to the House who the lender was – CAL Bank.

“Mr Speaker, let us be honest with ourselves, other than that, we will be setting examples that we cannot continue to follow” he added.

But the minority despite boycotting the passage says it will probe this loan facility.

Dr Clement Apaak, Deputy Ranking member, Education Committee of Parliament told journalists after a tour of some uncompleted projects in the country on Tuesday October 19 2021 that “We are all aware of the inadequacy of infrastructure which is why the obnoxious double track system was introduced.

“So when we have structures like this  90 per cent complete, at a cost of 9 million cedis  and yet we cannot complete it for students to have access to education , for classroom sizes to be reduced for  communities to have hope  that their wards are going to benefit  from the free senior high school, clearly, we cannot forgive government. “Because the 1.5 million dollars that GETFund was securitised  to obtain  was supposed to help complete what they themselves described as essential educational  infrastructure and they  indicated in their memo  to parliament  to parliament that was to address the increase number of students who have come on stream as a result of the coming into being of the free SHS policy, so why is this here.

“Is it that we don’t have the money? What have they done with the 1.5billion that we securitised the GETFund for? Is it not time they come to parliament to account for how many of the critical education al infrastructure they have completed so that we know there is value for money in a community such as this which doesn’t even have a secondary school. Is it fair?”

Source: Courage Komla Klutse|3news.com|Ghana