Group slams Clement Apaak over propaganda

Members of a pro-government pressure group, ‘Fixing the Country Ghana’, have described the claim by the Builsa South lawmaker, Clement Apaak, that 44,000 teachers resigned from the Ghana Education Service in 2021 as a clear propaganda to discredit the government.

Addressing a press conference in Accra yesterday, Director of Operations for the group, Hopeson Adorye, said just a meagre number of 293 resignations was recorded last year

“Of this number, some were sacked for unprofessional [mis]conduct, and did not actually resign! A smaller number represented those who died impromptu, or were dismissed for incompetence! It is highly shameful that someone as Clement Apaak who apparently scored an appreciable feat in education seems to throw sense out of the backdoor,” he said.

Mr Adorye said he was surprised that Mr Apaak, who had kept silent over brazen acts of incompetence when he and colleague Ministers and MPs had their day for a whole 27 years, had now found his tongue.

“He did not see anything wrong with the huge debt piled up at the Ministry of Education by NDC’s Prof Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang, well over ten million US Dollars. Capitation for the special schools were not even disbursed, adding to the problems that were endemic in the education sector at the time,” he added.

He said he was also surprised that Mr Apaak saw nothing wrong with the undignified manner of denying schools basic teaching material like chalk during the NDC era.

Recalling NDC failures

An executive member of the group, Fadi Dabbousi, recalled how the Mahama government tried to ‘steal’ NPP’s Free SHS policy by introducing the so-called “Progressive Free Senior High School Education policy”, with bills not paid.

He said that resulted in a further debt of ten million US dollars being incurred while “Clement Apaak was finger-poking his nose as he looked the other way”. He questioned why Mr Apaak remained quiet when NPP increased the capitation grant that NDC had capped at GHC4.5 to GHC10 per child.

Additionally, he challenged him to defend John Mahama’s laptop fiasco involving Roland Agambire in which a portion of the GHC51.3 million (then equivalent to some $12 million US Dollars) given him was lost to the state.

“Under NDC’s abysmal performance in the education sector, more students failed than any other time since independence, 75% of all candidates, while students are now realising phenomenal grades and passes under the Free SHS Policy,” he stated.

He said because of the NPP’s commitment to education, the Akufo-Addo government had restored the Book & Research Allowance that was abolished by the previous Mahama government, and enhanced it by some 200% from, GHS 500 to GHS 1,500.