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Education Minister, Matthew Opoku-Prempeh, also called Napo has taken a swipe at NDC Presidential candidate and Ex-President John Dramani Mahama for claiming ownership of the free SHS policy of the Akufo-Addo government.

The free SHS is on top of the campaign messages that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and his government are selling to Ghanaians ahead of the December 7 polls.

The President promised Ghanaians in 2016 that he would implement the policy when his government assumes office and has delivered on the promise.

However, the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) Presidential candidate, John Dramani Mahama is picking a bone of contention over the policy.

He says his government started the policy but couldn't see to its implementation because of his unfortunate defeat in the 2016 elections.

''We started the programme and the NPP came and continued it. Unfortunately the implementation has been very poor, and so it ended us in double track. I assure you my country men, that within one year, I will cancel the double track'', he stated.

Addressing the issue in an interview on Peace FM's ''Kokrokoo'', the Education Minister stated emphatically that Mr. John Mahama never launched the free SHS.

According to him, what the former President and his Running Mate, then Education Minister, Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang succeeded in doing was running the education sector into debts and failing to pay their debts before leaving office.

He stated that Mrs. Naana Opoku-Agyemang handed over a summary of challenges to him saying ''l candidate has been the worst Education Minister since the advent of the country called Ghana . . .Today, I have the summary of the key challenges and pending issues that Naana Opoku-Agyemang handed over to me. Listen to what she said; Outstanding Social Intervention Programme for 2016 - feeding grant for Colleges of Education, they incurred a debt but she didn't pay. She didn't also defray the debt for Special Schools which are 28 in number in Ghana. She didn't pay Senior High School subsidy. Progressive free Senior High School, she didn't pay for two years''.

He also touched on some statements that some officials of the erstwhile Mahama government made regarding President Nana Akufo-Addo's free SHS promise in 2016.

He cited the then Deputy Education Minister, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, Sam George - Member of Parliament for Ningo-Prampram and a host of others stressing they bastardized the free SHS.

To him, considering all the disparaging remarks the NDC made about the free SHS, it will suffice to say President Nana Akufo-Addo is the best in the history of Ghana, in terms of education.

''If Nana Addo has done what the NDC were saying on radio and television that we cannot accomplish, then Nana Addo's government is better than Kwame Nkrumah's government on education," he stated.