Govt Blows GH�43,000 On School Commissioning Funfare

It has emerged that the Nzema East Municipal Assembly spent spent a whopping GH¢43,000 on the commissioning of a senior high school (SHS) building recently.

The expenditure is reportedly inflaming passion at the assembly as the members are demanding justification for such a huge spending, especially when the supposed beneficiaries have denied receiving any payments.

President John Mahama on October 12 this year, commissioned the Gwiraman Community Senior High School at Bamianko in the Nzema East District of the Western Region.

Documents believed to have emanated from government circles and sighted by the media revealed that a colossal amount of GH¢43,000 was budgeted on the commissioning.

The revelation comes in the wake of a similar allegation of overspending by the government for the branding of 116 Metro Mass Transit (MMT) buses.

According to the documents, items on the school commissioning budget included weeding of the event venue which cost GH¢1,000 and   GH¢2,000 to journalists as ‘soli’ even though they (journalists) who covered the event claimed they were not given any money.

The estimate for snacks for students who attended the function was GH¢6,000 with GH¢2,500 being cost of fuel for chiefs and GH¢3,000 to feed special guests.

An amount of GH¢1,500 was said to have been spent on the plaque for the school, even though local artisans confirmed that the amount for the production of the plaque was bloated.

The assembly also reportedly spent an amount of GH¢5,000 to hire buses which were used mainly to convey supporters of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) to the event ground.

The list is endless, including scissors to cut the ribbons.

The assembly members, DAILY GUIDE learnt, are not happy because the expenditure was outrageous and unnecessary.

The Gwiraman Community SHS is the third community SHS to be inaugurated by the president in less than two months.

The first was the one named after the late President John Atta Mills which was inaugurated at Ekumfi Otuam in the Central Region last September. The community day SHS is the flagship educational project of the Mahama administration with a promise to build 200 schools by 2016.

So far, only three have been inaugurated with the third one at Nkwanta district in the Volta Region.