Open SOS call to President Mahama for justice
Our elders have said it, owo ka aniberee meaning a snake bites or stings out of frustration or distress.
An open SOS call was made to President Mahama for justice, as ordinary Ghanaians who supplied food items under the Free Senior High School Policy in 2024 found themselves in arrears. The government's obsession with partisan politics led to the belief that anyone who did business under a certain regime was a supporter of that political party. However, this is not always the case, and many individuals are simply prudent businesspeople who want to make the most of their finances.
In September 2024, the Minister of Education reached out personally to help supply maize to senior high schools in the Ashanti Region. The manageress of Rostella Enterprise, a company recommended by the Conference of Heads of Assisted Senior High Schools, was initially reluctant to supply the food items, but the Minister assured her that payment could not be repudiated by any future government. Despite this, the new government in 2025 decided to conduct a forensic audit of the supplies before proceeding with payments.
The auditors encouraged the manageress to register for new supplies, and she did by paying registration fees. However, due to her association with the previous administration, she has not since been given a contract for supplies. When implementation began, cooperative officials became elusive and hostile to her inquiries, including one officer stating he was not a member of the allocation committee.
The Minister of Education, Haruna Iddrisu, emphasized that the uncapped portion of the GETFund was being applied to pay for food supplies under the Free SHS programme. He lamented that while new suppliers appointed since 2025 were paid from the Ghana Education Trust Fund, the government had failed to pay for supplies forensically audited and established to be legitimate.
The discrepancy between the treatment of legitimate food supplies under the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo regime and those under President Mahama has raised serious questions about partisanship and loyalty in government business.
Written by urgent.news from MyJoyOnline Ghana's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
