1.2 MILLION BECE GRADUATES TO BENEFIT FROM FREE SHS - INFOR. MINISTER 30-SEPT. -2019

From the commencement of the next academic year in 2020, about 1.2 million students who have successfully passed their Basic Education Certificate Examination [BECE], would have benefited from government’s flagship education intervention, the Free Senior High School programme.

Infor. Minister, K.O. Nkrumah [2nd from left] await his turn to make a statement

Information Minister, Hon. Kojo Oppong Nkrumah made this disclosure at the Upper East Regional Town Hall [THM] Meeting, held in Bolgatanga on Monday, 30^th September, 2019. This marked the sixth of such regional hall meetings as some other regions including the Volta Region and Bono East Region have already taken their turns.

The Information Minister said further his statement that, a lot of work was going on under the auspices of government to ensure that Ghanaian children get quality education for free. Some of these include the provision of prescribed textbooks and the expansion of various school infrastructure among others. 

Hon. Oppong Nkrumah who is also the Member of Parliament for the Ofoase-Ayirebi constituency in the Eastern Region, stated that the Information Ministry had the mandate of creating platforms such as the Town Hall sessions that allowed for government to engage with the people and showcase the work that has been done so far in various parts of the country and also, take feedback from such fora to government. He was gladdened by the huge attendance at the event and noted that, the various pictorial presentations of development projects across the region’s 15 municipal and district assemblies would give ample testimony that, government had done tremendous work over the two and half years. 

A cross section of participants including ISD & MoI Staff at the event

He also touched on other pertinent issues that government was handling with tact and all seriousness and revealed for example that, government had injected about 14 billion Ghana Cedis into cleaning up the country’s financial sector. This he emphasised, had resulted in saving the deposits of over one million Ghanaians and other clients doing business in the country. He added that, this financial sector clean-up had also restored macroeconomic stability.

According to the Information Minister, several hundreds of thousands of Ghanaian youth who hitherto had no jobs after completing various tertiary institutions, have now found solace in government’s interventions such as Youth Employment Agency, the NEIP and the Nation Builders’ Corps [NABCO]. He disclosed for instance that, NABCO alone is estimated to have recruited over 100 thousand young men and women deployed under various modules. Meanwhile he also hinted that, close to 54,000 nurses were earmarked to be employed by end of 2019 and over 8,000 newly trained teachers, also being recruited.

An exhibition stance for one of the Assemblies

Upper East Regional Minister, Hon. Tangoba Abayage in her welcome address earlier on, announced that some 11 schools spread over seven municipalities and districts across the region, were benefiting from the construction of various blocks including dormitories for both boys and girls, classroom blocks and dining halls.  This comes on background of the free SHS implementation which took off in September 2017 with the swelling of student numbers in schools in the region. She added that these projects were being executed under government’s Emergency GETFUND projects.

Miss Abayage also revealed that, major works on the redevelopment of the Pwalugu dam in the Talensi District of her region, were to kick-start in November 2019 and that, President Nana Addo  Dankwa Akufo Addo himself was expected to come into the region to do the ground breaking ceremony. She noted that the completion of the dam which will turn it into a multipurpose hydro dam, will trigger a big transformation in economic and farming activities in the Upper East region and create more jobs for the people.

The Traditional Leadership was full represented too

Meanwhile, the Regional Minister’s address also revealed that some 82 dams were being constructed in communities across all districts in the region under government’s 1-Village, 1-Dam initiative. She added that, as many as 69 of these dams had reached 70 percent completion status and had collected water for the intended purposes.

On health, Miss Abayage announced that an amount 20 million US Dollars had been secured from the Saudi Fund for the completion of expansion and rehabilitation works at the Upper East Regional Hospital. 

Paramount Chief for the Bongo traditional area, Naba Baba Salifu Lemyaarum who also doubles as the Vice President of the Upper East Regional House of Chiefs, chaired the well-attended town hall meeting. In his closing remarks, he praised government for the successes chalked so far but said that, more was yet to be done as people across the country would continue to call on government to meet their various needs including health, roads, schools and many others.