Govt on ISSER Report: We respect the view of academia but...

The government says it was committed to its flagship social intervention programmes following a critique by the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) of the University of Ghana.

Dr Charles Ackah of ISSER, during the launch of the 2018 State of the Ghanaian Economy and the 2019 Mid Year Review on Tuesday stressed that the government needed to cut down its expenditure by reviewing some of its flagship social intervention programmes such as the Free SHS policy.

Dr Ackah, who is a Senior Research Fellow at ISSER also called on the government to scrap some ministries arguing that they had outlived their purposes and for that matter were a burden on the public purse.

He mentioned for instance, the Ministries for Inner City and Zongo Development, Business Development, Special Development Initiatives and Monitoring and Evaluation.

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But reacting to the critique at a press briefing on Wednesday, the Minister of Information, Mr Kojo Oppong Nkrumah said in as much as he respected the views of Dr Ackah, the government held a different opinion.

“We very much respect the view of academia and we encourage such reports that come up because it gives us an opportunity to interrogate these issues. Regional reorganisation, of course, the first part of regional reorganisation has taken place and now we have 16 regions but it is regional reorganisation and development."

“You go across the new regions, they now have to develop infrastructure and operations that they require to bring those regions to a fast track approach up to the level of the other regions. We are of the view that regional reorganisation and development is done with its reorganisation agenda but has a development task ahead of it, which it is currently embarking on,” he said.

On Free SHS, Mr Oppong-Nkrumah stressed, “government’s view is that the Free SHS is a heritage of the Ghanaian child. It is not necessarily based on whether your parents are rich or poor. It is to ensure that every Ghanaian child benefits from quality education up to the secondary school level.”

“We very much respect these views but we disagree with them. If government has the view to review that position it will do it as time goes along,” he added.