News:
January 29, 2021
Deputy Majority Leader Alexander Afenyo Markin has clarified that the Majority Group in Parliament does not have any bad intentions against tertiary students in Ghana’s education institutions.
According to him his side voted against the private members motion tabled by the Bawku Central lawmaker because it lacked clarity and was specifically bias against private tertiary educational institutions.
At a press conference on Friday, January 29, 2021 he pointed out that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government has all Ghanaians including those in the tertiary institutions at heart and would do everything possible to cushion every student in the tertiary but at the appropriate time.
He said, government has made provisions for tertiary students to access loans without even a guarantor and many initiatives that would bring relief to students and parents and Ghanaians should exercise patience for government to get its ministers in place, for an appropriate decision to be taken.
“The ambiguity in the motion was just too much if we want to have a plan for tertiary students in this COVID-19 era we must sit together with the Executive this government is at its formative stage we don’t have a Minister in place yet. Why rush the government when you know that it has not role its plan for the educational sector?”
He further pointed out that the whole thing that his colleague Mahama Ayariga is asking would have an impact on the economy, adding that it has cost implications, and he has done a research since 2009, and government is taking seventy percent of cost that students are supposed to pay.
And to create the impression that the Majority Group does not want to build consensus is not true, because the Bawku Central lawmaker prior to the filing of his motion he had already put it out in the public domain.
“He was seeking to court public sympathy and was on populist journey, if we really want to do something for the people of Ghana at a time that we all accept that business were collapsing and people are suffering your main stop is revenue, if you do not have can you give?”
“Is the Minority saying we should increase taxation, they mention VAT and are they asking that we take full financing of tertiary education in this country is that their argument, they have not put that out there?”
The Effutu MP noted that they were not in there to oppose but wanted the whole issued looked at holistically, and Ghanaians who followed their side of the argument would come to the relisation that they wanted to know which issues they wanted put to the Executive.
Again, he pointed out that at the time that the Nana Akufo-Addo led government was implementing Free Senior High School his colleagues were oppose to it, and if there is mention of any government that has demonstrated support towards education it is the NPP.
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com