World Bank called upon to intervene in $156 million loan for SHS

After failing to impress government to reconsider an educational loan deemed unjustifiable, the Minority in Parliament has taken their concerns to the loan-approving body, the World Bank.

The Minority has asked the World Bank to re-examine the $156 million loan agreement for the Ghana Education Improvement Programme.

The loan has a $15 million component meant to buy pencils, rulers, erasers and the most controversial – sanitary pads.

Government has justified the loan, saying, it lacks the funds to upgrade school infrastructure and tool up students with educational materials.

Government has explained, the scholarship component of the loan would benefit about 10,000 students and is proceeding to set up a state structure to administer scholarship despite the existence of a scholarship secretariat.

It insists the loan also meant to build some 25 Senior High Schools are all part of its programme detailed in its 2012 manifesto.

But at a press conference Monday, Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, Kwaku Agyeman Manu questioned the motive for the loan.

The Minority suspects that the loan would be lost to cronies, and an unaccountable system of public funds. They have since branded the move as “create, loot and share”.

The Minority did not have the numbers to shoot down the loan agreement in Parliament.

“Real motive of government is something else,” Kwaku Agyeman Manu said.

Their skepticism about the loan is also informed by the new body to disburse scholarship in rivalry to Scholarship Secretariat Scheme set up under the Office of Government Machinery (OGM).

The OGM works under the Office of the President (OoP) and was established by Article 57 of the 1992 Constitution.

The Minority further argued the personnel at the Scholarship Secretariat “have little work to do” because public funding for the running of the scheme and for paying tuition for beneficiaries has dried up.

There is “no justification for the irresponsible use of public funds,” the Chairman of Public Accounts Committee maintained.