GOVERNMENT Scholarship Secretariat Registrar, Kingsley Agyemang, has signaled a strong warning to Ghanaians not to pay attention to middlemen who influence the activities of the secretariat, saying that, the secretariat does not work in conjunction with any third party.
According to him, they have not engaged any third party or an individual to play that role.
‘’Therefore, the issue of middlemen or agency should not be tolerated. If anybody approaches you that the person has the capacity to help you get a scholarship and the person is demanding a reward be it financial or in kind, report the person to the nearest police station” he warned.
Kingsley Agyemang who disclosed this to DGN online affirmed that their services to Ghanaians are entirely free and that, if there is any cost attached to it, it will be communicated to the general public.
He explained that, ‘’if they should delegate some of their functions to any individual for a reward. An official announcement will be made to the public to make it more transparent and accessible since it’s a high agenda of the President, Nana Akuffo Addo to ensure that there is an equitable distribution of the national cake with regards to scholarship’’.
He stressed that the scholarship secretariat in conjunction with the Regional Coordinating Council will appoint additional people to the committee making it a five-member committee and as result, it will be very difficult for an individual to influence the process of the secretariat.
Mr. Kingsley Agyemang added that, even though it has been a challenge to the secretariat but says through the intervention of the president, the program has been extended to those in the rural areas which are under the local tertiary.
Decentralization
He indicated that the secretariat will receive applications on behalf of the registrar and shortlist it in the thematic areas of government priority and make recommendations to the registrar of scholarship for an award or scholarship with the idea of preventing people from traveling from their various destinations to Accra.
He pointed out that “Basically, this decentralization is a new concept novelty from the President which unprecedented in the history of the secretariat.
“Previously we only hear of scholarship secretariat when Ghanaian students are being abandoned in foreign lands and they were struggling in the various embassies worldwide which brought the reputation of the country into the mud. But since October 2017, we have not heard of such issues and noises from the students” he added.
FROM Daniel Bampoe, Koforidua