She was born to a farmer and a petty trader. Money was always hard to come by. However, her disadvantaged background was no hindrance to her quest for academic excellence. After obtaining an undergraduate degree with First-Class honours, Franklina Mensah (not her real name) knew better than to rest on her laurels.
The next step on her academic journey required funding she was well aware her parents could not afford. But with her stellar academic achievements, she was hopeful that support would not be difficult to come by. At least that was what Franklina thought when she submitted her application to the government-run Scholarship Secretariat, seeking funding for a master’s degree programme in the United Kingdom (UK).
If the scholarship was going to be awarded on merit, she felt she stood a very good chance. Her sense of optimism soared higher when she received plaudits from the interview panel, who were full of praise for her excellent proposal and academic credentials.
But optimism gradually fizzled into heartbreak.
Several weeks had gone by since the interview. She should be preparing to travel to the UK to start her new academic journey. But she hadn’t heard from the Scholarship Secretariat. She was getting anxious and the only way to ease her anxiety was to go to the Secretariat to find out what could be causing the delay. Maybe some clerical or administrative error was to blame. At the offices of the Scholarship Secretariat, Franklina met an official whose name she couldn’t recall. What ensued left her stunned.
“I mentioned my name, and he said, ‘Your name was on the list but there is so much protocol they had to take people out.’”
The official claimed requests come from highly influential offices including that of the President, Parliament and ministers “for this same scholarship.”
“You should understand that people will have to go off the list,” he told Frankina.
In other words, she had been shortlisted for the scholarship but a protocol list from some higher office or authority had forced her name to be taken off the shortlist.
“I was dumbfounded,” Franklina told The Fourth Estate.
As luck would have it, however, or perhaps as a testament to her perseverance and the quality of her graduate proposal, she obtained a different scholarship which enabled her to pursue her studies that same year – and in the UK as planned.
Franklina’s story is just an example of how what is supposed to be a merit-based scholarship scheme to help brilliant but needy Ghanaians achieve their academic dreams has gradually and cruelly been rigged in favour of those who are connected to the political elite.
Both Getfund and Ghana Scholarship Secretariat are not for the poor and needy rather for the rich and who you know inside there….You can apply everywhere for 5 good years and never be selected even with the necessary qualifications
— mohammedashraf (@Ashraf_Saadugu) March 28, 2024
Request for scholarship data
After hearing numerous complaints from people like Franklina, The Fourth Estate asked in March 2021 for data from the Scholarship Secretariat on those who have been awarded scholarships in 2019 and 2020.
The secretariat initially refused to grant the request, claiming the data was confidential. But the Right to Information (RTI) Commission ordered that personal information should be redacted and the data released. The Commission based its ruling on the premise that the scholarships were funded with public money.
The Scholarship Secretariat’s response to the RTI request showed that it had spent GHS237.5 million and GHS200 million in 2019 and 2020, respectively, covering both foreign and local scholarships.
The Scholarship Secretariat, an agency under the Office of the President, was established in 1960 with the primary purpose of providing local and foreign scholarships to academically gifted but financially needy students. Following the country’s liberation from colonial rule, the Nkrumah administration set up scholarship programmes as a means to incentivise and attract top talents to bolster the nation’s workforce by assisting citizens who lacked the financial means to fund their education.
In recent years, however, the secretariat has faced criticism for allegedly perpetuating patronage, often overlooking deserving applicants in favour of those with political and high society connections.
A major source of funding for the Scholarship Secretariat is GETFund. Section 2.2(b) of the GETFund Act requires the Scholarship Secretariat to allocate funds to support “gifted but needy students for studies in second cycle and accredited tertiary institutions in Ghana.”
The Secretariat administers bilateral scholarships, funded by foreign countries, and non-bilateral scholarships, which are financed by the Ghanaian taxpayer. Non-bilateral scholarships include funding for both local and foreign categories.
Scholarship for the well-connected and not-so needy
The Fourth Estate asked for data covering 2019-2020 because the Auditor-General had released a report (covering 2009-2018) in which it highlighted how deserving but financially disadvantaged students were sidelined, while scholarships were granted to the well-connected.
Our investigations revealed a similar trend—the funneling of scholarship funds to influential people as well as children, relatives and associates of powerful figures.
The Fourth Estate conducted an analysis of the data specifically focusing on scholarships funded by the government of Ghana. This analysis included a breakdown of the expenditures on scholarship recipients in various countries, details of the programmes pursued by the beneficiaries and their backgrounds.
From our analysis, in 2019-2020, the Scholarship Secretariat spent at least 291,480 pounds sterling (GBP), 146,502 US dollars (USD) and 7,685 Canadian dollars (CAD) respectively on influential individuals and the associates of the political elite.
Notably, the founder and chief executive of a private hospital in Accra who recently contested and lost in the NPP parliamentary primaries in the Ashanti Region received USD50,031 for his master’s in public administration at Harvard University in the United States.
An NPP constituency executive from the Eastern Region was awarded multiple scholarships for master’s programmes, totaling GBP57,210.
An NPP youth activists and a management member of the National Service Scheme (NSS) funded her Master’s degree studies with a scholarship award worth GBP18,450.
One of the most worrying details from the information we received concerned a special assistant to Second Lady, Samira Bawumia. GBP17,355 was paid for the special assistant to attend a university in the United Kingdom but he never stepped on campus and dropped out of the programme after attending only a few online classes from Ghana.
There is also the case of the fam,ily member of President Nana Akufo-Addo and former Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta whose path to law school in the United Kingdom (UK) was cleared with a GBP16,740 scholarship.
A UK branch executive of the NPP, who has been living in that country since 2008, also received GBP28,380 for a Master’s Programme in Law.
Two top diplomats are also on the list of beneficiaries of a scholarship meant to empower the underprivileged, according to information on the Scholarship Secretariat’s own website.
Children of the political & social elite
The data revealed that it wasn’t just the politically connected who obtain government scholarships. Children of Ghana’s political and social elite also received scholarships, leveraging influence and privilege to access educational opportunities intended for brilliant but needy Ghanaians.
For example, the daughter of a former Inspector-General of Police received GBP27,480 for a first-degree programme in the UK.
In that same year, the daughter of prominent actress received USD41,026 for a pre-medicine programme in the United States.
The children of two former Members of Parliament received GBP19,130 and USD36,675 for a first degree in law and a pre-medicine programme respectively.
The daughter of a former national chairman of the NPP, who is a lawyer, got funding of almost GBP6,000 to qualify to practice as a lawyer in England and Wales.
The identities of these beneficiaries would be revealed in subsequent publications.
Multiple scholarships
Data from the Scholarship Secretariat showed that at least 26 people received multiple scholarships which allowed them to pursue different programmes in two consecutive years or different programmes in a single year. This means while some needy students were struggling to secure a scholarship to fund one programme, others received funding for two different programmes.
At least 11 individuals received multiple scholarships in consecutive years (2019 and 2020), with amounts ranging from GBP13,250 to GBP55,000 per school to cover tuition and living expenses. Six others were granted two different scholarships within the same year, either in different countries or in the same country.
The Fourth Estate confirmed that one beneficiary received GBP28,330 in 2019 to cover his living expenses and tuition for an MSc degree Management at the Brunel University in London. In 2020, the state again paid GBP15,750 for his MBA in Business Administration at the University of the West of England.
Another beneficiary received USD38,475 for an MA in Design Management at Savanna College in the United States in 2019. In the following year, the same person received GBP14,500 for an MA in Visual Communication at the University of Derby in the UK.
Discrepancies in criteria and guidelines
The GETFund Act, which makes funding available to the Scholarship Secretariat, explicitly stipulates that government scholarships are meant to support brilliant but needy Ghanaian students.
The Registrar of the Scholarship Secretariat, Dr Kingsley Agyemang, insists that this provision merely means that the primary criteria for receiving a scholarship are for the applicant to have a Ghanaian citizenship and an admission offer to a local or foreign university. The award of the scholarship has nothing to do with need, he claims.
While rejecting suggestions that scholarships are being wantonly awarded to those who are well-connected to the political and social elite, Dr Agyeman implied that recommendations from powerful persons and offices sometimes influence the award of scholarships.
I have journalists and the media making recommendations for people. I also do know that we have chiefs and the clergy making recommendations for people. I also do know that I have politicians on both sides also making recommendations for people they believe deserve an award, he said.
“We live in a society where we are somehow connected in so many ways and it becomes difficult when we want to separate these little interactions.”
Despite Mr Agyeman’s insistence on the existence of selection guidelines, the Scholarship Secretariat failed to provide any document with such guidelines to The Fourth Estate. Repeated calls and Whatsapp messages requesting for the guidelines went unanswered.
Dr Clement Apaak, the deputy minority spokesperson on education, insists that using any criteria other than “brilliant but needy” to award scholarships, defeats the purpose of setting up the Scholarship Secretariat.
“When we bring in exclusive groups as being conduits through which scholarships can be given, then we are subjecting the process to abuse,” he said.
Prof Peter Quartey, the Director of Institute of Statistical Social and Economic Research (ISSER), agreed with Dr Apaak and noted that relying on recommendations to assess need is not good enough.
“For the politically-exposed people, they are Ghanaians. They pay taxes. They should meet the minimum standards that are set and they should all be part of the process,” he said.
“If we have an independent committee or board that assesses every application, they will all be given equal opportunity. When politically-exposed persons want to apply, they can apply – except when there is influence and they are the ones who benefit most.”
Dr Apaak, however, insists that influential or politically exposed persons and their close relatives should not be eligible to apply for government scholarships.
He asserted that it was not for nothing that tax laws are designed to positively discriminate in favour of the poor and added that the needy also deserve their fair share of opportunities offered by the state.
He described the offering of scholarship to influential people, children of the affluent and their associates as a form of greed. This, he said, has the tendency to widen the inequality gap between the rich and the poor in society.
“It is in their own interest not to continue to be greedy and selfish, where they can afford to educate their wards and yet they choose to let their wards benefit from scholarship that should be going to the wards of the less fortunate in society,” Dr Apaak said.
“Society ought to be designed in a way that [we] would always sacrifice collectively to bring up those who are down.”
Multiple scholarships
When The Fourth Estate pointed out concerns about double scholarships to some beneficiaries while other deserving applicants were rejected, Dr Agyemang claimed that those who received the double scholarships pursued complementary courses. He insisted that the number of such double beneficiaries was insignificant.
Dr Agyemang also attributed some of the multiple scholarships to “administrative error” on the part of some staff of the secretariat who are accustomed to manual record-keeping.
However, Prof Quartey of ISSER noted that such multiple awards could only be justified if they were for courses that could not be undertaken in Ghana or for specialties in science, technology, engineering and technology, with stringent requirements for beneficiaries to return to the country to pass on their knowledge and skills.
Dr Apaak, on the other hand, described the multiple scholarship awards as unfortunate as they showed the insensitivity of the Scholarship Secretariat.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story shall not be republished or broadcast, in part or in full, in any form or shape without the express permission of the Editor-in-Chief.
Watch out for part two of this story…
You can reach the writer via email at [email protected] and amedekudede@ gmail.com.
hmmm. Saddening but what’s the solution? Every Ghanaian place there will favor their own. There can never be a free and fair system.
Favor your own but don’t sell it to them. No one has so many family members, favor your family would have been just few people. What happens is that they sell to the highest bidder.
Ghana our mother land
The painful thing about this evil is that the cheating doesn’t end here. Many of the beneficiaries will either not return to serve this country, or they’ll still be catapulted into undeserving positions if they ever return, and the cycle continues. Endless elite cloning!
Ghana our motherland
I am no longer surprised
any surprise there?? don’t waste our ears. hasn’t it always been like this? pls go back since 1980 and the results will be the same.
This is one of the reasons I didn’t support scholarships when free SHS was introduced. The elite in society essentially politicians would have abused it like they way the are abusing this one.
Until we implement proper laws to guide this with transparency in the award. We will continue to be short changed.
The system favors the rich
This is bad and speaks to the biased and morally rotten society we are in. How on earth should the Second Lady be considered ‘Brilliant but Needy’ and stands the chance to win a scholarship?
Ihave never tried to apply because I know I will not get it.
This is the bombshell you have been advertising this whole time??? This is not news. You either tell us something we don’t know or you tell us people are being held accountable.
Thank you. Tell us something we don’t know!
It is called Grace or tight connection when it favours them but corruption or bias when it does not. This is the Ghana we have built. Dr Apaak an embarrassing hypocrite. What does he have to say about Okudzeto Ablakwa and Felix Ofosu Kwakyes Get Fund Scholarships.
This is sad. That’s all I can say for now.
I was requested to pay a sum of 20,000 Ghana cedis for a government scholarship by an individual at the secretariat. I informed him of my affiliation with the ruling party, but he persisted in demanding the payment. I sought assistance from a few individuals to help me acquire it, but unfortunately, it did not yield the desired outcome.
APPRECIATE
My story repeated in 2020. A member of staff told me in plain words after interview that he saw my score but if I don’t find any government official to follow-up for me then I should forget. The rest is history ????
The worse of it is to hear Ghanaians saying that’s how it has been since. Does this justify the rot? Whether its the norm or not, corruption must be dealt with and measures must be put in place to stop it. my heart bleeds for the real brilliant but needy.
This is sad, connection and discrimination.
Am suffering In similar manner because of so call recommendation. I have been posted by MOH/HTI to Kumasi Nursing and midwifery training college to teach after going through interview organized in Accra by HTI. When I got the school, the principal said she doesn’t know me and doesn’t understand why the MOH post me to the school without informing her. As I type, am still at home. Ghana you someone must know you.
This is no news as there have been issues of corruptions and bribery with this government the more. My problem is when will there be a live broadcast of perpetrators being punished or prosecuted, then we will see the relevance of this kinda exposé, till then we will keep whining like this over and over again.
You wil see n hear the poor defending this nkwasiasɛm ….hmmm Awurade tiase
they wicked politicians always using state money to fund the education of their people including their children so that they can some day hold higher positions and continue ruling us
As remarked already by some, this is not news to many. The 4th Estate publishers know that too. They objective is to see if anything has changed since 2018, when the Auditor-General issued a report on same. Anyway, myself and the late Dr. Prosper Tsikata took on the issue as far back as 2012. It culminated in his One Man March on Parliament to present a petition we put together. When the issue became topical again, I added a forward and published it again on modernghana.com under his name. I made drastic suggestions, top among them suspend using the GETFUND for foreign scholarships until there’s no longer any schools under trees. Here’s the link to the article.
https://www.modernghanaweb.live
I took time to read the article hair to toe, and I couldn’t help sobbing. A country called Ghana!
As remarked already by some, this is not news to many. The 4th Estate publishers know that too. They objective is to see if anything has changed since 2018, when the Auditor-General issued a report on same. Anyway, myself and the late Dr. Prosper Tsikata took on the issue as far back as 2012. It culminated in his One Man March on Parliament to present a petition we put together. When the issue became topical again, I added a forward and published it again on ghanaweb.com under his name. I made drastic suggestions, top among them suspend using the GETFUND for foreign scholarships until there’s no longer any schools under trees. Here’s the link to the article.
https://www.ghanaweb.live/GhanaHomePage/features/TheGETFund-and-foreign-scholarships-brouhaha-1863557
N/B
Previous got posted by mistake when trying to correct an error.
I was asked to pay a sum of 8,000£ for scholarship, they calculate your stipends and your tuition. They explained that i will receive more than the amount paid in the end. I refused and exposed them on my social media, I’m currently struggling in the uk paying my fees myself but it’s worth everything than giving it to thieves. I know at least 12 people from this man’s family who are in the uk doing masters, PhD , and undergraduate… they call themselves Asiakwa people. They are all scholarship secretariat holders, some have received multiple scholarships from undergraduate to PHD. Yet stipends for others from 2021 batch hasn’t been paid.
I was asked to pay a sum of 8,000£ for scholarship, they calculate your stipends and your tuition. They explained that i will receive more than the amount paid in the end. I refused and exposed them on my social media, I’m currently struggling in the uk paying my fees myself but it’s worth everything than giving it to thieves. I know at least 12 people from this man’s family who are in the uk doing masters, PhD , and undergraduate… they call themselves Asiakwa people. They are all scholarship secretariat holders, some have received multiple scholarships from undergraduate to PHD. Yet stipends for others from 2021 batch hasn’t been paid.
I was asked to pay a sum of 8,000£ for scholarship, they calculate your stipends and your tuition. They explained that i will receive more than the amount paid in the end. I refused and exposed them on my social media, I’m currently struggling in the uk paying my fees myself but it’s worth everything than giving it to thieves. I know at least 12 people from this man’s family who are in the uk doing masters, PhD , and undergraduate… they call themselves Asiakwa people. They are all scholarship secretariat holders, some have received multiple scholarships from undergraduate to PHD. Yet stipends for others from 2021 batch hasn’t been paid.
An excellent article reduced by politicization to lose the interest of many. You were told ministers of both parties we included in what you were investigating but your whole expose here is directed at the ruling party.
Do you have evidence from 2012 to 2017 as to how these scholarships were awarded? If so show it and make a complete case. All Ghanaians have an interest in stopping this so start becoming trustworthy and earn what your name suggests.
“I mentioned my name, and he said, ‘Your name was on the list but there is so much protocol they had to take people out.’”
The above quote from the story reminds me of my plight somewhere in 2003. I saw my name on the noticeboard but by the time I was back with my passport and money for airfare – US$ 1,050 (within the stipulated time given to us), my name had vanished from the list. The original list of shortlisted beneficiaries pasted on their noticeboard had all be taken down. They now had to look at another list in file on their desk to tell you whether your name is still there or not.
All the documents they made me translate into French are all there, including the health certificate and HIV test results … they are all there now as I type.
This country needs to be flashed out and started afresh.