The Eastern Regional Minister Seth Kwame Acheampong says Free Senior High School is the best policy ever in the history of Ghana since independence.
According to him, the “positivity of the free SHS policy is never debatable. It is the best policy ever since independence that every Ghanaian is enjoying. This is for all and we are using the collective resource that is the taxes we all pay, and it is the taxpayer’s money we are using”.
The Regional Minister stated that the government is addressing bureaucracies that cause delays in the release of funds and supply of food to schools under the Free Senior High School Policy.
This, he said would help facilitate timely disbursements to curb challenges headmasters and headmistresses continue to face in running the schools.
Challenges of erratic supply of food and delay in the release of funds for the implementation of the Free Senior High School policy have remained a major headache for Senior High Schools.
The situation sometimes forces the schools to credit perishable and nonperishable foods to feed the students.
The conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS) has threatened several times to shut down the schools over these challenges whenever the situation becomes unbearable.
However, Eastern Regional Minister, Seth Kwame Acheampong told the media at the sidelines of an event by CHASS in Koforidua on Friday that, the government has identified the barriers to the Public Finance Management platform, that’s, the government integrated financial management system( GIFMIS) as some of the cause of the delays in disbursements hence addressing the situation.
“Because of the nature of our public financial management system it is bound to happen because you need to upload everything through the GIFMIS) a system that has its challenges so those are the transparency issues that have to do with bureaucracy. However, the government is looking at how it can improve this payment system so that we can have freedoms for the people who managed the schools because without them, without the needed resources, without the grants coming it makes it a challenge for the head of the institutions really do what is expected of them .so it is matter government has identified and it is seriously working at it. I know recently the Ministry of Finance met them to look at how it can shorten some of these gaps”.
President of CHASS Alhaji Abubakar Yakubu said the government has assured that it is addressing challenges therein in the implementation facing the policy.
He stated that CHASS has also submitted its proposals to the government to streamline the policy when the government deems it necessary to review the Free SHS policy.
Source: Mybrytnewsroom.com/Obed Ansah
