Education Minister Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum was found guilty of fraudulently placing students in prestigious high schools for which they did not qualify.
According to a new revelation from the Fourth Estate, a private investigative firm owned by ace journalist Manasseh Azure, a fraudulent payment was made to a student being placed in a Grade ‘A’ school in 2022. is due to the login access of the Minister of Education. .
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This is contained in the testimony of Professor Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa, who was the Executive Director of the Ghana Education Service (GES) at the time of its establishment and sat on the Investigative Board of the Ministry of Education to investigate the allegations. force of corruption in schools. location.
Professor Opoku-Amankwa is also one of only two people with unrestricted access to the computer system and can grade or approve student placement in “A” schools, the report said.
Official placement in the most prestigious high schools has been restricted to the Secretary of Education and the GES Superintendent to limit the disbursement of funds for “A” placements.
This restriction did not stop corrupt practices in Ghana’s most wanted schools, leading to the creation of a commission by the Ministry of Education. The commission was formed after the Department of State Security wrote a complaint about allegations of corruption in the system.
The report of the six-member committee, which The Fourth Estate has exclusive access to, states: “He [Prof Opoku-Amankwa] sighted [sic] an example in one of the cases that was reported that an amount of GHS7000 had been charged to place someone at Wesley Girls or Achimota School. A probe using the log report on the system showed that it was done with the Hon. Minister’s access which was being handled by Ms. Vera Amoah.”
Also, the report adds: “Prof Amankwah went on to say that subsequently, his permission to the log port on the placement system was blocked and so could not trace and act on complaints that came in thereafter.”
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The committee spoke to Dr Adutwum after obtaining evidence from Professor Amankwa, but the report did not say whether the minister denied the GES executive’s claim that a fraudulent transaction was attributed to the account. theirs or not.
When The Fourth Estate requested comment through the Department of Education’s public relations, the Department declined to comment. However, he said that he would “study the investigative work, collaborate with relevant state institutions and address the issues raised accordingly.”
Professor Opoku-Amankwa told The Fourth Estate that the system is designed so that he can see the positions that have been taken or approved by the minister of education and the minister can also see what he has done in the system. system. However, a week after being placed in 2022, he said his access to the system had been revoked without any explanation.
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The technical advisor to the school placement system told the committee that the decision regarding access to the placement protocol on the computer system was communicated to him in a memo.
“The consultant receives instruction in the form of a memo generated by the Free SHS Coordinator and signed by the Hon. Minister to assign protocol access to some identified officers,” the report states.
However, it appears that the Minister of Education subsequently initiated certain changes and guidelines that have not been documented.
