News:
March 1, 2016
The Upper West Regional Minister, Alhaji Amidu Sulemana has described as a storm in a tea cup the hype about Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia’s ordering of some 500 furniture for a deprived basic school-Kperisi M.A. Primary School in the Wa Municipality of the Upper West region.
Alhaji Sulemana said the fuss about the situation is out of place, because it was already in the Assembly’s itinerary to supply furniture to the school.
He maintained that reports of the situation had been relayed to authorities and were making plans to fix the problem.
“The District Director of Education has been to that school and realised that a lot of the pieces of furniture were broken, so she made a report to the Assembly and the Assembly indicated that they were procuring a number of dual desk to distribute to their schools. So they were still in the process when the story broke out. But when the story broke, the Ministry of Education quickly reacted to provide the furniture and not because Bawumia went there,” Alhaji Sulemana disclosed on Kasapa 102.3 FM.
Pupils were reportedly lying on the bare classroom floor to write because they lacked furniture to sit on in the deprived school.
The Headmistress of the school had also complained the pupils were faced with various health problems as a result of the poor classroom situation. According to her, the school children don’t only get waist pains as a result but also catch flu which always land them in the hospital.
Following this report, the running mate of the biggest opposition party (NPP) Dr Mahamudu Bawumia while touring the region visited the Kperisi M.A. Primary School and made arrangement to extend support to the school by ordering for some 500 set of furniture to ease the plight of the school children.
But the GES Directorate in the wake of Bawumia’s visit hurriedly procured furniture to the school, after Dr. Bawumia intervened to relieve the sufferings of the school children.
Government alongside authorities of the school since the news broke have received backlash from the public for overlooking the poor conditions of the school in a long while, but could only respond to the dire situation when the opposition running mate made interventions.
Reacting to the issue on Anopa Kasapa on Kasapa 102.3 FM, the Regional Minister said the move to make swift intervention to the school could not be said to be one of political gimmick since the Assembly was in the process of supplying the furniture.
He however said the GES is in touch with the problem in other places and is in the process of supplying same across-board.