Member of Parliament for Builsa South, Clement Apaak, has called on the education minister, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, to step aside in the case involving his pin code allegedly being used to place a student in a category ‘A’ school.
According to him, the Special Prosecution, Kissi Agyebeng, must take up the case and investigate it due to the conflicting narration of events leading to the placement.
“The Min. for Education must step aside. His pin code was used to place a student charged GHC7,000 according to Prof. Opoku’s testimony to the committee. Why did the Minister refuse to tell the committee the person(s) he gave his pin to? The SP must take up this case…”
Clement Apaak
Mr Apaak’s comments followed a testimony given by Prof. Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa, who was the Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES) and part of the Ministry of Education’s investigative committee’s sitting to probe alleged corruption in the school placement. It was alleged 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.
Prof. Opoku-Amankwa was also one of only two persons with unfettered access to the computer system and could place or approve placement of students into category ‘A’ Schools. Access to protocol placement into the most prestigious senior high schools was limited to the Minister of Education and the Director General of the GES to curb the payment of money for placement into category ‘A’ schools.
Owing to the corruption within the system, the committee was set up after the Ministry of National Security wrote to complain about allegations of corruption in the system.
The report of the six-member committee, which ‘The Fourth Estate’ has exclusive access to, states: “He [Prof Opoku-Amankwa] sighted an example in one of the cases that was reported that an amount of GHS7000 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”
According to the report, 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.
The committee spoke to Dr. Adutwum after taking Prof. Amankwa’s testimony, but the report does not state whether or not the minister denied the GES Director-General’s assertion that a fraudulent transaction was traced to his account.
Upon request by ‘The Fourth Estate’ concerning comments on the matter through the public relations officer of the Ministry of Education, the ministry declined to comment. It, however, stated that it would “study the investigative work, collaborate with relevant state institutions and address the issues raised accordingly”.
Access to computerised school placement system
Prof. Opoku-Amankwa interacting with The Fourth Estate, stated that the system is designed such that he could see placements that were effected or approved by the Minister of Education and the Minister could also see what he did in the system.
A week after the 2022 placement started, however, he said his access to the system was revoked without any explanation to him. The technical consultant of the school placement system told the committee that the decision on who should be granted access to protocol placement on the computerised system was communicated to him in a memo.
“The consultant receives instruction in the form of a memo generated by the Free SHS Coordinator and signed by the Hon. Minister to assign protocol access to some identified officers.”
Committee report
However, it emerged that the Minister of Education later initiated some changes and instructions which were not documented.
An Assistant Research Officer in charge of procurement at the Free SHS Secretariat, Mohammed Kamel Issa, was also given access to the category ‘C’ schools to help resolve some of the placement issues. But two weeks after the placement process, Kamal’s access was blocked.
“The coordinator later informed him that the Hon. Minister had requested to meet him in his office at the Ministry. According to Kamel, he sought to find out from his supervisors the purpose of the intended meeting with the Hon. Minister as well as the reasons for the revocation of his access but he did not get any response from them. The meeting with the Hon. Minister, however, did not come on because the Free SHS Coordinator later came to inform him that the Minister did not need him again.”
Committee report
