Government paid spousal allowance for scholarship beneficiary – Final list of beneficiaries for 2019 and 2020

The Scholarships Secretariat paid the wife of a scholarship beneficiary more than £6,000 as spousal allowance in 2019.

Desmond Asare received £25,480 (GHS430,612) for tuition and stipend to study for a Master’s programme at the Birmingham City University.

However, while many other beneficiaries were denied their stipend or even local scholarships to study in Ghanaian universities, Mr Asare’s wife received the equivalent of GHS 103,428 as spousal allowance, according to data the Scholarships Secretariat released to The Fourth Estate.

In the same year, the Secretariat sponsored a student to study Luxury and Fashion Management, although there are no recognised luxury fashion businesses in the country.

According to data from the Scholarships Secretariat, Chelsea Naa Arday received €20,000 to study for an MSc. Luxury and Fashion Management at the Paris Business School in France in 2019.

The former Ashesi University graduate now lives in Paris. She is one of 972 Ghanaians who obtained government scholarships to study in foreign universities in 2019 and 2020, according to data available to The Fourth Estate.

Beneficiaries studied in countries including the United States of America, Great Britain, Canada, France and Australia.

The Scholarships Secretariat spent a total of GHS437.5 million in the two-year period on both local and foreign scholarships, according to data supplied to The Fourth Estate in a reluctant and rather unenthusiastic response to a right to information request.

That response came after the Right to Information Commission had instructed that the data should be released because the scholarship funds were public funds. A careful analysis of the data revealed that scholarships were awarded to the politically connected, as well as the kith and kin of the Ghanaian social elite contrary to the mission of the secretariat to fund brilliant but needy students and Ghanaian workers at a minimum access cost.

In addition to raising questions about the prudence of awarding scholarships for beneficiaries to pursue a course like Luxury and Fashion Management, the data also revealed government paid for numerous other courses that are readily available in universities and colleges in Ghana.

At least 17 beneficiaries were also found to have received more than one scholarship within the two-year period covered in the data.

We publish below the final batch of scholarship beneficiaries in the list provided to The Fourth Estate by the Scholarships Secretariat:

List of Foreign Scholarships Beneficiaries Batch 3 by Clem Journo on Scribd