Member of Parliament for South Dayi, Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor, has raised concerns over the fairness of scholarship distributions by the Scholarship Secretariat.
In a recent interview on GhanaWeb TV, he questioned the transparency of the selection process and called for an audit of the Secretariat's activities.
Dafeamekpor commended the processes and criteria used by the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) in the awarding of scholarships.
He stated that despite cases of 'protocol,' the majority of GETFund scholarships are awarded based on merit, with a rigorous assessment of applicants' academic performance.
“Maybe there's 1% allocated to protocol, it happens. I cannot litigate that. I can't fault them for that. But my point is that at least 80% of scholarships are equitably or fairly given,” he said.
He contrasted this with the selection criteria used by the Scholarship Secretariat, which are not as transparent as those of GETFund.
According to him, the structure of the Scholarship Secretariat has made it difficult for parliament to perform its oversight responsibility.
"Members have filed questions. They sidestepped the questions until we went on recess. The Scholarship Secretariat is an extra-ministerial body established by President Nkrumah and placed under the Office of the President, and it's been there since. So parliament exercising oversight has been difficult,” he said.
He added “So if you don’t have a minister who serves at the office of the president then we can never exercise oversight in terms of asking parliamentary questions to elicit responses, then you may have to wait until budget cycle to question their expenditure which is also done under limited circumstances. So you have very limited ability to question things.”
Highlighting the challenges faced, Dafeamekpor mentioned that the registrar of the Secretariat travels frequently, often in first or business class, to destinations unknown to the parliament.
This, coupled with the registrar's past issues in the insurance industry and subsequent sanctions by the National Insurance Commission, raises questions about transparency and accountability.
“I don’t remember the last time when this man, Kingsley, came to Scholarship Secretariat and put up a notice that Scholarship Secretariat is putting up applications for people to apply, none.
“I have filed two questions directed at him, which were advertised, admitted and advertised. The minister of state at the office of the president ought to have come to answer," he said.
His push for accountability comes amid allegations of backdoor dealings and financial demands from scholarship applicants.
Recently, the Fourth Estate exposed another set of politicians who were beneficiaries of scholarships from the Ghana Scholarship Secretariat, reigniting the discussion about the criteria used to award scholarships to students.
Watch the video below:
Credit: ghanaweb.com