GETFund’s Bold March on Educational Infrastructural Development.
The Nana Akufo-Addo administration has, since taking office in 2017, set as one of its core priorities, the development and growth of the education sector to promote Ghana as what the Ministry of Education calls a ‘learning nation’. Indeed, educational reforms, with the flagship Free SHS programme as its centerpiece, featured largely on the NPP’s election campaign in respect of both the 2016 and 2020 elections.
Despite various economic challenges amidst the global pandemic and its associated fallouts, GETFund is resolute in maintaining its core mandate in the infrastructure across all levels of the education system.
Subsequent to opening up access to senior high school education through the Free SHS policy introduced in September 2017, and which saw an explosion in the SHS population from 800,000 in 2016 to about 1.2 million by the end of 2020, was an increased demand for extra space in our boarding schools, ranging from dormitories, classrooms, laboratories, assembly halls and others.
Infrastructure Audit & New Measures
Pursuant to an infrastructure audit of all GETFund projects at the beginning of 2017, the Fund noted that out of a total of 7,201 projects, 3,897 were at various stages of completion. The audit exercise also revealed a number of project relocations and 45 projects were identified and listed as ‘projects not found’ after several reconciliation with key stakeholders and investigations. Upon review of accounting records at the GETFund Secretariat no payment certificates were submitted on those projects and processed for payment.
Despite capped funds on GETFund by virtue of the Capping and Realignment Act, the Fund had to discharge its mandate by ensuring that the outstanding projects were brought to fruition. This it did by operationalizing a number of measures per the audit report.
First, all revisions and re-awards of projects were halted. Subsequent to this, the Fund established Monitoring & Evaluation Units in order to ensure effective monitoring and delivery of its sponsored projects as well as enhance value for money, project data coalition and reporting. These monitoring units were established to have jurisdiction in the Southern, Middle and Northern belts of the country and are based in Accra, Kumasi and Tamale respectively.
Other measures the Fund took included an enhanced certificate vetting process, the institution of ‘financial clearance’ from GETFund as a requirement for re-awards and reviews to ensure budgetary control, project cost rationalization and the new awards based on non-fluctuation contracts.
The Fund through the Ministry of Education also advised managers of public universities in the country to complete all existing projects on campuses before initiating new ones. The Ministry also urged the universities to have dedicated sources of funding before starting any infrastructural project.
Old Projects (Pre-2017)
The 3,897 uncompleted projects that were inherited by the new government in January 2017 included classrooms, dormitories, hostels, dining facilities, library blocks, and administration blocks, among others across all levels of the education sector.
Of these, 1344 have been completed by government, thus;
- Basic Education Infrastructure – 690
- Secondary School infrastructure Projects – 513
- E-Blocks – 14
- Tertiary Education infrastructure Projects – 127
Out of the remaining 2,553, at various stages of completions across all levels of the education sector, 786 are above 70%, 920 are between 30% – 70% and 833 are below 30% completion.
E-Blocks
Of all the physical infrastructure projects that have come up for discussion and public scrutiny is the Community Day Senior High Schools (popularly known as E Blocks) that were commenced under the administration of former President John Mahama, with a promise to complete 200 of these schools by the end of 2016. This is not surprising given the political circumstance in which the project was birthed as a legacy of the previous government.
The Ministry of Education and GETFund have had to refute, on several occasions, accusations that it has abandoned the uncompleted projects and left them to rot. However, the facts do not support these allegations.
Out of the 200 schools initially promised, 23 were to be constructed by the World Bank, with Government of Ghana, through GETFund assuming responsibility for 101 projects, bringing to a total 124 projects on which physical work had been done.
As at January 2017, 29 projects, comprising 7 by the World Bank and 22 by the GETFund/Ministry of Education, had been completed. A further 28, comprising 14 World Bank and 14 GETFund/Ministry of Education projects have so far been completed.
On the E Blocks, the 2017 infrastructure audit revealed that the challenge with several of the completed ones were not in use because their location away from their targeted communities made commuting to school difficult and hence students preferred not to choose those schools for their SHS education. GETFund has therefore had to make provision for the construction of ancillary facilities like dormitories to help solve the challenges and encourage more parents to choose the schools for their wards.
GETFund clearly is on the path to ensuring the delivery of its mandate and has shown over the past few years that it remains committed to ensuring this. The future certainly seems bright.