20/9/2024
The Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), James Klutse Avedzi, has called on government to retrieve funds allocated to lecturers who benefited from its scholarship programme to go on study leave abroad but refused to payback.
His plea came on the back of the Committee’s discovery of unpaid funds by beneficiaries of government scholarships during its hearing in the Volta regional capital, Ho.
It has become a normal practice for beneficiaries of government scholarship who go on study leave abroad either not to payback what was spent on them or do not return after completing their course of study.
As it is noticed over the years, most lecturers who benefited from these scholarships to study abroad either refused to return to Ghana or failed to payback to government.
This, James Klutse Avedzi, expressed great displeasure about how professionals held in high esteem especially lecturers took advantage of the opportunity to upgrade themselves but refused to acknowledge government’s efforts by refunding monies offered them to advance their academic exploits.
The Committee also noted that most of these default lecturers are in the Technical Universities under the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC), and has therefore charged government to retrieve all monies owed it under the scholarship programme and also come up with legal document that would be binding on all beneficiaries of government scholarships to payback while on study leave abroad.
Some members on the Committee also noted, that most of these lecturers failed to serve their mandatory terms after their studies and suggested that such conducts be resisted by authorities to serve as a deterrent to prospective beneficiaries of government scholarship initiatives.
The Public Accounts Committee further blamed the failure to return to Ghana by these fortunate lecturers on the lack of commitment by their guarantors, many of whom are also colleague lecturers, and urged them to ensure that they payback or do the needful.
Management of Technical Universities, Colleges of Education, Senior High Schools (SHS) and District Assemblies from Greater Accra, Eastern, Oti, and Volta regions appeared before the Committee.
PAC also identified that lecturers, whom after having resigned from one university and gained employment at another university, receive salaries from both institutions. This, according to the Committee, is a criminal act hence recommended that culprits be made to payback and also face full rigours of the law.
By: Kelvin Setrick