Deputy Ranking Member on Parliament’s Education Committee, Dr. Clement Apaak, has said government’s inability to provide details of the total cost and number of teachers to benefit from the ‘one teacher one laptop’ initiative simply indicate there is something fishy.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for Builsa South said it’s a bit strange government cannot provide answers in regards to which company was asked to buy the laptops and on what basis was the company selected to undertake the project.
His comment comes after Vice-president Dr Mahamudu Bawumia on Friday, 3 September 2021, launched the One Teacher-One Laptop programme and handed over 350,000 of the machines to the teachers at a brief ceremony at the campus of the St Mary’s Senior High School.
Speaking on Citi News, Dr. Apaak said “We have been hearing about this proposal which was made by teacher unions. It is indeed very strange that the government today claims to have rolled out a policy where they are offering laptops to teachers at a 30% rebate. Isn’t it strange that the Vice President and Ministry of Education [can’t provide answers to some of the lingering questions?]. Government smells a bit fishy. Which company has been asked to buy the laptops? On what basis was the company selected to do such a massive undertaking, given the potential colossal financial amount that will be accrued as benefits.”
He also accused the New Patriotic Party of plagiarizing the NDC’s manifesto promise to provide basic school children with laptops.
“This is a very poor attempt to plagiarize NDC’s manifesto promise to provide laptops to children from basic school to SHS all the way to tertiary schools. So this knee-jerk reaction to plagiarize a policy that we have proposed is only informing the government of its inability to properly plagiarize a well-thought policy we would have implemented if we had won.”
Source: ghanaweb
