Dr. Richard Ampofo Boadu
The Administrator of the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund), Dr. Richard Ampofo Boadu has refuted claims that GETFund has collateralized its receivables to borrow to the tune of $1.5 billion.
According to him, ‘’Such narrative is a complete twist of facts surrounding this particular subject matter, I guess it is for diabolical purposes’’.
Speaking at a forum, he explained that sometime in 2019, Parliament approved an amount of $1.5 billion in the cedi equivalent, for GETFund to borrow on the capital market to enable the Fund to finance emergency projects particularly, in the second cycle institutions, as enrollments had surged due to Free SHS.
He further stated that the Trust Board, therefore, undertook a combination of loan syndications from some selected banks and bond issuance on the capital market and raised a total of GHC3.42 billion as of December 2022.
He added that these loans have been used judiciously across the various levels of education as evident in emergency intervention projects in Second cycle schools, model STEM schools, provision of vehicles to schools and colleges, and TVET centers of excellence dotted across the country.
‘’It is therefore highly inaccurate for anyone to spread the information that GETFund proceeds have been collateralized to the tune of $1.5 billion’’, Dr. Boadu pointed out.
BY Daniel Bampoe