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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 Minister of Education, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum.
This is contained in a testimony given by Prof. Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa, who was the Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES) at the time of the placement and the Ministry of Education’s investigative committee’s sitting to probe alleged corruption in the school placement.
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.
That restriction did not stop the acts of corruption in Ghana’s most sought-after schools, resulting in setting up of a committee by the Ministry of Education. 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 [sic] 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.”
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.”
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.
Min. of Education Report on Alleged Corruption in the 2021 Shs by The Fourth Estate on Scribd
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EXCLUSIVE: Fraudulent payment for school placement traced to Education Minister’s access
