Photo: Haruna Iddrisu, Education Minister
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The Minister of Education appears to be orchestrating a quiet coup within Ghana’s education financing space — one that could have far-reaching consequences for transparency, accountability, and the future of deserving but underprivileged students.
Buried in the fine print of the Ghana Scholarship Authority Bill 2025 is a power-grabbing scheme disguised as reform. It reeks of executive overreach and a calculated bid to strip the Registrar — the one constitutionally mandated officer — of any real authority in administering scholarships.
Let’s unpack the duplicity:
1. Section 5 of the Bill shockingly sidelines the Director General/Registrar, granting them no authority whatsoever in administering scholarships. Instead, all key powers are handed to a politically-influenced Board.
2. Yet, Section 28 contradicts this setup, stating that the Director General shall “in consultation with the Board” award scholarships.
3.
So, which is it?
Who truly calls the shots — the Director General or a rubber-stamping Board dancing to the Minister’s tune?
4. The Board is now empowered to vet, approve, and disburse scholarships — daily, Monday through Friday — in clear breach of the Public Service Board Manual, which restricts board meetings to at least once a quarter.
5. The glaring inconsistencies between sections of the same bill raise one critical question: Is this confusion accidental, or deliberately engineered to centralise control in the hands of the Minister and his loyalists?
But this is not just about legal gymnastics. It’s about influence and power.
5. The Minister’s move undermines the Public Financial Management Act (PFMA), 2016, which tasks Principal Spending Officers with:
o Ensuring proper use of public funds,
o Authorising commitments within budget ceilings, and
o Managing all resources received or disbursed by the institution.
By sidelining the Registrar — the entity’s Principal Spending Officer — the Minister is effectively removing accountability from the scholarship process.
6. So why is the Minister so desperate to snatch this authority away from the Presidency and institutional structures? Why does he want to own the Scholarship Secretariat?
7. And how will this full-time Board be paid? From which budget line? With what oversight?
8. Let’s be clear: this bill doesn’t solve funding bottlenecks, doesn’t consolidate scholarship programmes (as promised by the President), and certainly doesn’t streamline access for students.
Instead, it creates bureaucratic bloat and invites political interference into what should be a merit-based scheme.
The writing is on the wall: this bill is not reform — it is a raw power grab. It opens the floodgates for political favouritism, turns scholarships into political tools, and renders the Director General a ceremonial puppet.
In plain terms, this is about weaponising scholarships for political ambitions.
We must raise the red flag.
This is not about building an efficient Ghana Scholarship Authority. It’s about building a political war chest on the backs of needy students.
Let’s call on Minority Leader Haruna Iddrisu to channel his energy into scrapping double-track, eliminating schools under trees, and expanding proper education infrastructure, not fighting to own the Scholarship Secretariat like personal property.
Ghanaians must reject the Ghana Scholarship Authority Bill 2025 in its current form. It is unfit for purpose, inconsistent with sound public financial management, and a direct threat to fairness and opportunity.
We must demand better. Now.
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