{"id":467377,"date":"2018-02-25T07:11:19","date_gmt":"2018-02-25T07:11:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ghana-mma.com\/2018\/02\/25\/free-shs-crippling-other-sectors-mahama\/"},"modified":"2018-02-25T07:11:19","modified_gmt":"2018-02-25T07:11:19","slug":"free-shs-crippling-other-sectors-mahama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/02\/25\/free-shs-crippling-other-sectors-mahama\/","title":{"rendered":"Free SHS crippling other sectors \u2013 Mahama"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div id=\"medsection1\">\n<!-- End of html generated by this->header() --><\/p>\n<p class=\"floatLeft\">General News of Sunday, 25 February 2018<\/p>\n<p class=\"floatRight\"><strong>Source: <\/strong>classfmonline.com<\/p>\n<p>2018-02-25<\/p>\n<div class=\"article-left\">\n<p class=\"article-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/38440798.295.jpg\" alt=\"Prez John Mahama Dramani\" title=\"Prez John Mahama Dramani\" width=\"295\" height=\"270\" \/><span class=\"image_caption\"><span>Former President John Mahama<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"noPrint\">\n<div id=\"537626303\" style=\"width:300;height:250;margin:0;padding:0\">\n<p>\t\t  <noscript><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"b2ad7fa7fd\" name=\"b2ad7fa7fd\" src=\"http:\/\/ghanaweb-d.openx.net\/w\/1.0\/afr?auid=537626303&amp;cb=151125817929577\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"300\" height=\"250\"><a href=\"\/\/ghanaweb-d.openx.net\/w\/1.0\/rc?cs=b2ad7fa7fd&amp;cb=151125817929577\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/1519542679_661_ai\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/iframe><\/noscript><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"clear:right\">Former President John Dramani Mahama has criticised the New Patriotic Party (NPP) for implementing a broad Free Senior High School (SHS) policy in a haste which has resulted in the programme taking all government resources and stifling other developmental projects.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe problem this government is facing and it is in their own interest, is that, Free Senior High School is absorbing all the fiscal space they have and so almost every money you have, you are having to put it into Free Senior High School. So you can\u2019t pay District Assemblies Common Fund, you can\u2019t pay NHIS (National Health Insurance Scheme), you can\u2019t pay GETFund (Ghana Education Trust Fund), you can\u2019t pay other salaries and things because all your money is going into Free Senior High School,\u201d Mr Mahama said on Saturday, 24 February 2018, during the Unity Walk organised by the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) at Somanya in the Eastern region.<\/p>\n<p>According to him, individuals who cannot meet the financial requirements must be identified and the Free SHS programme designed to meet their needs and \u201cwe must adopt a system where those who can afford to pay are able to pay\u201d to free up the burden on the countries resources to be allocated to critical sectors.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI can afford to pay my son\u2019s Secondary School fees why should you give me free SHS? Identify those who need it and cannot afford to pay and give them bursaries so that they can pay those fees and those who can afford to pay let them go ahead and pay,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>He was concerned that the problems associated with the Free SHS policy will escalate because in subsequent years it will be expanded to cover continuing students and more funds will be needed to sustain the programme.<\/p>\n<p>For him, a stakeholders\u2019 conference and review of the Free SHS programme will \u201cfree up space for them to be able to put money into their One-District-One-Factory, One-Village-One-Dam\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/content.jwplatform.com\/players\/n7lzlWRB-GtVgZhNx.html\" width=\"600\" height=\"350\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"auto\" allowfullscreen=\"\" style=\"position:absolute;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou don\u2019t put all your money into education alone and when people don\u2019t have water then you say \u2018but you have Senior High School\u2019. You put all your money into one thing and when people say they don\u2019t have electricity then you say \u2018you have Senior High School\u2019. You put all your money into one thing and when people say they don\u2019t have food then you say \u2018you have Senior High School&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Saturday&#8217;s Unity Walk in Somanya is the 5th in the series after similar exercises were held in the Northern, Greater Accra, Central and Western regions.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"600\" height=\"350\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/SqY9SFX9Kek\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"600\" height=\"350\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/E16aA6S2acc\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"600\" height=\"350\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/B9iuoVhOPLU\" frameborder=\"0\" gesture=\"media\" allow=\"encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><!-- uploaded by: 49 updated by: 45 --><\/p>\n<p><!-- Start of html generated by this->footer() -->\n<\/div>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a style=\"display:none\" rel=\"follow\" href=\"http:\/\/megatheme.ir\/\" title=\"\u0642\u0627\u0644\u0628 \u0648\u0631\u062f\u067e\u0631\u0633\">\u0642\u0627\u0644\u0628 \u0648\u0631\u062f\u067e\u0631\u0633<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>General News of Sunday, 25 February 2018 Source: classfmonline.com 2018-02-25 Former President John Mahama Former President John Dramani Mahama has criticised the New Patriotic Party (NPP) for implementing a broad Free Senior High School (SHS) policy in a haste which has resulted in the programme taking all government resources and stifling other developmental projects. \u201cThe [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":467378,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-467377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467377\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}