Youth Development and Empowerment Minister says the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) has no business administering scholarships, insisting that role belongs to a centralised authority backed by law.
George Opare Addo, speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express, the Minister explained that the new scholarship bill currently before Parliament is aimed at correcting the gaps that investigations by The Fourth Estate exposed.
“I chaired that committee with Haruna Iddrisu as the co-chair, because he is the Education Minister,” he said.
“Currently, the Scholarship Secretary sits under my ministry, but when it is all done and the bill is passed, it will have to move to the Education Ministry, because technically, scholarships are educational issues.”
He said the key problem being addressed is the lack of standard procedure.
“For instance, we did not have a standard procedure for administering scholarships, and so it was about whom you know,” he said.
“From where I sit while growing up, I knew that scholarships are for brilliant but needy students, people who could not afford or if the state had the need to address a certain challenge.”
He recalled how, when Ghana discovered oil, there was a need to train experts to fill the gap.
“So the state will have to look for very smart, young, dedicated students and then sponsor their education so that they can go and come back or get training and then come and help fix the problem.”
That, he said, has been abused. “How scholarships have been administered was like selling tomatoes in the market. People go and then say, ‘Ah, let me pay ¢10 or ¢20,’ based on the investigations that the Fourth Estate did. So we wanted to address that challenge.”
[embedded content]Mr. Opare Addo said the current situation—where GNPC, GETFund, and the Scholarship Secretariat all run scholarship programs—is untenable.
“We needed a scholarship regime where if GNPC and GETFund have funding, we put them into a scholarship fund and then let there be an authority to regulate. So we have one centralised agency managing all the publicly funded scholarships.”
He was unequivocal on GNPC’s role: “I don’t think it is even proper for a government agency like GNPC to be administering scholarships when there is a scholarship agency or an authority or executive that is mandated by law to run.”
He emphasised that Ghana has never had a proper scholarship law since independence.
“There was no law as to how scholarships are administered. And so, where we are today, we needed to have a comprehensive program so that I know that this is the criteria that has been set out when I’m looking for a scholarship, this is what I have to meet, and this is how I apply.”
On foreign scholarships, he said the bill will discourage funding for courses already being taught in Ghana.
“Yes, funding some courses abroad. So one of the things we are looking at is programs that can be or are being taught locally; the state must not spend money sending students abroad. For instance, business administration.”
He was firm that a student cannot be sent abroad to study Business Administration when “the University of Ghana Business School is one of the best in the sub-region.”
When asked to clarify if a course exists locally, the state will not fund it abroad, he said: “That is what we have currently, as in the proposal in the bill, and Parliament will have to look at it and decide.”
He warned that failure to believe in local institutions would amount to defeatism.
“What it means is that we have no hope, no confidence in our own institutions, and if we cannot, as a government, support our institutions to build that kind of confidence… even some of the schools that some of these students leave Ghana to attend, if we compare their pedigree to UG, KNUST and UCC, you ask yourself, are we serious at all?”
He was open to scholarships for private universities in Ghana.
“Yes, know some of the things Ashesi University is doing, and so if there is a need to fund some students.”
But he stressed that cost will be a key consideration.
“The cost will be part of the things we’ll look at. But you see, although Ashesi is not cheap, there are some programs that Ashesi is running that UG and KNUST are not running.”
To him, keeping the funds within Ghana makes economic sense. “If Ashesi has that potential, why should I send a student out of Ghana when Ashesi can do it when I can give the money to a Ghanaian entrepreneur, and the money is going to remain in Ghana.”
He added, “You see, one of the challenges is our exchange rates.”
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