Vice Chairman of the Education Committee of Parliament, Dr Prince Hamid Armah has revealed that the government has instructed the Controller and Accountant General Department to make available an amount of ¢50M for the conduct of the West Africa Examinations Council Examinations (WASSCE).
According to the Member of Parliament (MP) for Kwesimintsim constituency who is also the Former Director-General of the National Council for Curriculum Assessment, (NaCCA) the money should be available latest by next week Tuesday.
The legislator on Thursday raised red flags regarding the timely conduct of the examinations as government was in arrears of GHC23m.
Dr. Armah confirmed that indeed the government was in debt of the said amount to WAEC but then government was working hard towards settling this debt to see through that the 2022 exams is successful.
“It is important to note that last year 2021, WAEC presented a budget total of Gh¢128,000,000 towards the conduct of both the BECE and WASSCE. Out of this huge figure, government had paid Gh¢105,000,000, I mean that’s an absolutely huge amount out of the total budget they submitted.
“So yes there’s is an outstanding of Gh¢23,000,000 for 2021. WAEC also presented a budget for 2022 WASSCE and they expect that some disbursement will be made but he has to understand that government cash-roll in terms of revenue generation is accrued on daily basis so we need to get the money and be able to distribute to the various sectors of the country. So they submitted and they expect that those monies will be made available so that the 1st August examination can occur,” he stressed.
“WAEC initially had requested for 6million but government was committed to the proper distribution of education. He went ahead to assure the public that the controller accountant general had been instructed to make available 50 million Ghana Cedi”.
“So I will assure the public that government is very committed to ensuring that the 2022 examination is conducted and is conducted successfully”.