The Minister for Education and The Director of Ghana Education Service (GES), Hon. Yaw Osei Adutwum and Dr. Eric Nkansah respectively, have found themselves in the controversies surrounding the seeming collapse of the Free Medical Health Screening for Senior High School (SHS) students.
The two have been accused for diverting the Medical Health Screening contract which was started by the Ghana Health Service (GHS) some three years ago, to their cronies and NPP foot soldiers who are have no expertise in public health.
This paper has gathered that, the Ghana Health Service (GHS) has seized the Free Medical/Health Screening for students because GES has failed to pay over GHC13million debt it owes GHS.
However, instead of settling this debt, the GES Directors have decided to ignore GHS in the exercise and handed over the contract to some private individuals who most people described as “unprofessional” and “NPP foot soldiers.”
The situation has become a big challenge especially with the free Senior High School program which has resulted in a large number of students entering the Senior High Schools.
The GHC13 million debt spanned a period of three years.
It has also emerged that since the inception of the program, three years ago, GES refused to make payment to GHS to pay its workers and other registered private facilities who have been included in the exercise.
Information received in regards to the development is that GES failed to settle this debt because it claimed there was no funds.
However, reliable information received indicates that funds have been released by the Ministry of Education for payment to GHS but GES is not willing to release that for reasons best known to themselves; probably the funds are being used to pay the alleged cronies and party foot soldiers who have been employed to carry out the screening.
A letter in possession of this paper dated My 17, 2022 revealed that, the Ghana Education Service (GES) put in a request to the Ministry of Education for the release of an amount of GHC13,649,550.00 for payment for medical screening services for Senior High Schools students for the 2019/2020 and 2020/2021 academic years.
According to that letter, the SHEP Unit has validated the screening report from schools submitted by GHS and confirmed that a total of Four Hundred and Fifty-Four Thousand, Nine Hundred and Eighty-Five (454,985) students in Five Hundred and Sixty-Seven (567) SHSs have been screened.
This letter was written after the GES received a letter from GHS requesting for payment.
Sadly enough, the Ghana Health Service (GHS) is yet to receive funds for payment whilst the contract has also been taken away from them and handed over to other individuals.
This paper will be giving further details on this matter. Stay Tuned!
