President Akufo-Addo in a photographic with some of the committee members after the programme
PRESIDENT AKUFO Addo has indicated that the introduction of the Free Senior High School (SHS) policy is saving Ghana’s oil cash from being stolen by a handful of individuals.
The President made this known yesterday in Accra during the launch of the maiden Ghana Oil and Gas Licensing Round, which seeks to ensure transparency and fairness in the award of oil blocks in the country.
President Akufo-Addo, recounted that “in the 2018 budget, GH¢455.9 million of petroleum revenues was allocated to the Free SHS programme. Free SHS is ensuring that our oil revenues are being equitably distributed to our people, and not ending up in the pockets of a few.”
He justified the investment of oil cash into the Free SHS project which is a social intervention aimed at giving every Ghanaian child the opportunity to access secondary school education free of charge.
The President argued that, “Indeed, countries that have benefited immensely from their oil and gas resources, are those that implemented policies to accelerate value addition activities in their economies, through the development of forward and backward linkages, and by investing oil revenues in strategic social and economic programmes.”
His government, he said, was following suit, adding that “We are using our oil revenues to create assets, and not waste it on consumption and the accumulation of debt.”
According to him, “this is why we are investing revenues from oil in one of the most ambitious social programmes of our country’s history, i.e. the Free Senior High School policy.”
Mr. Akufo-Addo whose visionary leadership gave birth to the Free SHS program, said “the most important resource of any nation is its people. “Investing in our children and in the future of our country is the most appropriate investment any Government can make, and we are fully committed to continuing on this path.”
In 2017 and 2018, he reiterated, the first two years of the implementation of the policy, two hundred and seventy thousand (270,000) more students have entered senior high school than they would have otherwise done prior to the policy.
He added that “if we are to sustain and broaden the scope of our social interventions that rely on petroleum revenues, we must consciously work to increase crude oil production.”
BY Melvin Tarlue