Dr. Clement Apaak, the deputy ranking member of Parliament’s education committee, is berating Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, the leader of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), for a campaign ad that asserted that the Free Senior High School policy had benefited more than five million people.
Dr. Apaak, who also represents the John Mahama Campaign on issues pertaining to education, called the advertisement “concocted” and urged the Vice-President to remove it and apologize to Ghanaians, citing data from Fact-Check Ghana, a project of the Media Foundation for West Africa.
“DMB [Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia] must immediately pull down his fraudulent advert, claiming that over 5 million students have benefited from FSHS from 2017-2024. How can the number of FSHS beneficiaries be more than the number enrolled? Such blatant lies must be roundly condemned,” he disclosed in a brief statement.
About 3.1 million students had benefited from the Free SHS program, according to data supplied by FactCheck Ghana. This number is far less than the one stated in the widely disseminated advertising.
Dr. Apaak went on to say that the number would have drastically decreased if the fact-checking organization had relied on data provided by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) at the time the pupils registered for the West African Senior School Examination (WASSCE).
“Not all enrolled students proceed to complete by registering and writing WASSCE,” he reasoned.
After the fact-check, the MP for the Builsa Constituency in Parliament demanded the vice president to withdraw his “deceitful advert.”
Source: Ghanatodayonline.com