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The President of IMANI Ghana, Franklin Cudjoe has advised the Mahama-government to be prudent in its spending because by doing so, tertiary students will agree to the utility cost sharing policy it intends to implement.

He stated that while the government is asking the students and the general public to “gird up their loins, you [government] should be seen to be prudent yourself.”

Government is currently in talks with stakeholders in the education sector, including student leaders, to formulate a utility cost sharing policy which will make tertiary students pay 70% of their utility bills during their stay on campus while the various institutions will pay 30%.

According to the government, it is no longer able to bear the utility costs of all public tertiary institutions.

However, student leaders have threatened to kick against the policy because it will further burden students financially.

Speaking on Citi FM’s news analysis programme, The Big Issue, Franklin Cudjoe expressed disappointment that government has not exhibited judicious use of state resources which is why citizens are unwilling to make any compromises.

“As we speak, I haven’t seen much of the prudence on the part of government…and it’s important that when the subject of cost cutting comes up, it shouldn’t only be thrown at students or everybody else except the government.”

He also argued that “if the economic management had been well done, some of these piece meals, interventions here and there will not really be the case and if the parents of university students were a bit okay in the system, we would probably not get questions [to] this at all.”

“If the economy were any better, people will not necessarily be bothered if they are asked to pay some of these things and also the way the politicians keep promising all sort of things which they want to do which they don’t deliver,” he added.

Cudjoe advised the students not to outrightly dismiss the suggestion being made by government, but they should take a critical look at the policy again.

Meanwhile, financial analyst, Sydney Casely-Hayford is of the view that tertiary education should not be supported by government.

He nonetheless stated that “it is very important that we bring out good material…then we have to figure out the mechanisms for ensuring that we have provided all the tools that are required.”

According to him, if the nation’s philosophy is that the youth must be educated to a point where they have the needed tools to make a living for themselves for the rest of their lives, then the needed support must be given by the state.

“If we think that by the time a young man finishes SHS you would have given them sufficient machinery to be able to go out there, get a job and make a living, then that is what you support until that point. If it has to go beyond that, then you need to decide whether or not you need to support it as a country to that point.

Casely-Hayford stressed that tertiary students should not be made to pay utility bills.

He rather suggested that the government must “reduce the numbers that they are taking in…you want to have a good calibre of people whom you can have intellectual discourse with.”

“The last thing you want them to be doing is worrying about whether or not they can afford to pay their bills while they are trying to study. It’s not good enough,” he added.