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Ghanaian Politics

Committee’s report on ‘School placement for sale’ raises more questions than answers – Dr Apaak

By : cd on 11 Feb 2023, 01:21     |     Source: myjoyonline

Clement Apaak

The Ranking Member on Parliament’s Education Committee has questioned the credibility of the report on investigations into the School Placement for sale scandal by a six-member committee of the Ministry of Education.

In an interview on Joy FM’s Top Story on Thursday, Dr Clement Apaak said the report “raises a lot more questions than proffers answers.”

This, he explained is because the Education Minister, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum has not been transparent about who has access to his code.

He said Dr Adutwum’s attempt to protect the person’s identity raises a lot of questions.

“Why is it that we were told that there were other persons who were given access as far as placement in grade ‘A’ schools was concerned, yet the identity of those who were given such access was not revealed? So it looks like these committees work actually throws up a lot more questions that we all have to interrogate,” he added.

He also questioned why the National Intelligence Bureau (NIB) and Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service were not made to conduct the investigation as initially intended.

His comments come after a committee set up to investigate the placement scandal reported that a fraudulent payment made for the placement of a student into a category “A” school in 2022 was traced to the login access of the Education Minister, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum.

The report of the six-member committee, which The Fourth Estate has exclusive access to, stated that: “He [Prof Opoku-Amankwa] sighted [sic] an example is one of the cases that was reported that an amount of GHC7000 had been charged to place someone at Wesley Girls or Achimota School. A probe using the log report on the system showed that it was done with the Hon. Minister’s access which was being handled by Ms. Vera Amoah.”

The report adds: “Prof Amankwah went on to say that subsequently, his permission to the log port on the placement system was blocked and so could not trace and act on complaints that came in thereafter.”

According to him, an independent entity should be made to probe into the matter.

He recommended the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) be made to conduct investigations into the issue.

This, he explained is because the issue at hand deserves more attention to get to the bottom of the issue.