Minority appeals to Government for release of capitation grants

Accra-Ghana, March 29, GNA – The National Democratic Congress (NDC) Parliamentary Minority Caucus has appealed to the government to release the arrears of the capitation grants to facilitate the smooth running of public basic schools in the country.
Dr Clement Abas Apaak, Deputy Ranking Member on the Education Committee of Parliament and NDC Member of Parliament (MP) for Bulsa South, made the appeal on Wednesday at a press conference at Parliament House in Accra.
Capitation grant for basic schools is the amount of money allocated by the Government for public basic schools in Ghana operating under the Ghana Education Service to help cater to the needs of schools in the absence of school fees.
The capitation grant was introduced in Ghana in the year 2005.
Dr Apaak alleged that for two years now, government had not disbursed the capitation grants to ensure the smooth running of basic public schools in the country.
The situation he said had become so serious that the Conference of Heads of Public Basic Schools had publicly lamented.
He said the purpose of the capitation grant was to finance the administration and day to day needs of public basic schools.
He said the grant was supposed to cover the maintenance of schools, to be used to procure items like chalk, attendance registers, to fix broken doors and windows and minor renovations in the nation’s public basic schools; saying “but because Government has failed to do the needful, many heads of basic schools have to borrow money to ensure that the schools run.”
“Some of them have had to take loans, to the extend that many of them are now being harassed by their creditors and this is clearly affecting teaching and learning in basic schools system”.
Dr Apaak said for the 2022 budget year, Parliament an amount of GH¢60 million for capitation grant.
“As I speak to you, Government owes capitation grant for the previous budget year at a whooping amount of GH¢45 million. What that means is that the Government was only able to remit GH¢15 million.”
He said for the current year in question, the request was GHS 61 million for capitation grant but Government only brought GHS 11 million for the House to approve.
He noted that ideally, the government should be making available to the public basic schools’ capitation grant in excess of GH¢106 million.
“That is not happening. The request is not being met, and the monies that ought to go to these schools so that they can function properly are not going,” Dr Apaak said.