VP Bawumia (second right) at the launch of a free tertiary education project
Dr. Clement Apaak, Member of Parliament for Builsa South and Deputy Ranking Member for Parliament’s Committee on Education, has alleged that the government has directed Colleges of Education to cough up close to GH¢7 million to the internet service provider, Busy Internet.
The amount is to be shared between 46 public Colleges of Education who were the party of the New Patriotic Party, NPP, government’s education digitization drive, a key plank of which was the free WiFi project captured in 2016 and 2020 manifestos of the party.
Apaak disagrees with the order for refund as contained in a letter dated July 23 which was signed by the Minister of Education and transmitted to the Director-General of the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission, GTEC.
According to the lawmaker, the said WiFi service never really reached most of these institutions because most of them already had arrangements for internet service and more so, that the said service provider, Busy Internet, hardly spent a day working on connectivity in any of the colleges.
Part of a lengthy writeup he posted on Facebook read as follows: “I hereby state emphatically … that there can not be any justification for the government through the Ministry of Education to direct GTEC to ask the 46 Colleges of Education to pay Busy Internet GH¢6.8 million (148,347 per College), pay for the installation for a supposedly free WiFi service which is yet to function and to take over payments for a non-functional free WiFi service.”
He has subsequently promised to push the government for accountability on the matter. “I intend to pursue this in addition to asking for accountability with regards to the policy to provide free WiFi services to all public educational institutions.
Read his full post below: