Photo: Tafo MP Vincent Ekow Assafuah
Education Minister Haruna Iddrisu has taken a swipe at Tafo MP Vincent Ekow Assafuah, accusing him of using “chop-bar” calculations to arrive at misleading conclusions on government spending.
Mr Assafuah had earlier labelled the government a “chobo” administration, claiming that the previous NPP government could have procured 6.6 million sanitary pads for GH¢99 million, while the current NDC government is spending GH¢292 million, almost three times that amount.
Speaking on the floor of Parliament during the debate on the 2026 budget statement, Iddrisu dismissed Assafuah’s claim that the government was paying GH¢45 per sanitary pad as “a palpable falsehood.”
“Mr Speaker, a colleague of mine arguing on sanitary pads chose to do ‘chop-bar arithmetic,’” Iddrisu said. “He just took the number of 6.6 million in the first batch of sanitary pad supply and concluded that the government was procuring sanitary pads at 45 Ghana cedis. That is simply not true.”
He explained the actual figures, saying the government is procuring a total of 12,208,000 sanitary pads for GH¢292 million. “It is not for him to just take 6.6 million and divide by 292 million and arrive at a wrong figure,” Iddrisu added.
The Education Minister’s rebuke comes amid ongoing scrutiny of government allocations in the education sector, particularly regarding initiatives aimed at improving access to sanitary products for schoolgirls. Iddrisu emphasised the importance of presenting accurate figures in Parliament to ensure that public discourse is grounded in fact.
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