Two reports have revealed that investment made in the educational sector by government from 2015 to 2017 with oil revenue has not yielded the expected returns in terms of development.
The Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES), in collaboration with Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP) on Tuesday, launched the two reports-“Leveraging Ghana’s Oil Resources Wealth for Economic & Human Development” and “A Value for Money Analysis of ABFA”in Accra.
The reports focused on sustained oil revenue investment in the educational sector.
According to the reports, “The contract for the rehabilitation of the Nalerigu Senior High Resource Centre was not taken through the proper procurement processes and was awarded to Messrs Zidra Fisheries and Enterprise Ltd in 2010.
“The contract sum was GH¢104,659.53 of which an amount of GH¢5,232.98 was set aside as retention fee forming about 5% of the contract sum.”
There were “multiple sole sourcing, ignoring the procurement process.”
The reports indicated that in some cases, contracts for the execution of projects could not be found but payment was effected.
Oil revenue investment made in educational infrastructure between 2011 and 2015 amounted to GH¢70,214,562.
Referring to the Education Sector Performance Report for 2015, the reports indicated that Ghana attained most of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) on universal basic education.
Ben Boakye, Executive Director of ACEP, said government must take the issues seriously to improve secondary education.
He called for local participation in order to monitor the work on the ground.
“Project contractors and beneficiaries must be made aware of the source of funding for effective monitoring to promote transparency in the utilization of the oil revenues.”
He stressed the need to adhere to proper tendering processes to improve infrastructure in second cycle schools to support the implementation of the free SHS programme.
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