Parliament Approves GH₵924m GETFund Distribution Formula

A GH₵924m Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) Distribution Formula has been approved by Parliament for the year 2018 as Tertiary institutions are expected to receive the lion share of an amount of GH₵328m representing 35.48percent of the total amount for their projects and programmes.

Secondary and basic schools were allocated GH₵256m and GH₵253m respectively whiles others such as the GETFund secretariat, Ministry of Education also received GH₵66m representing 7.20percent.

This was contained in Parliament’s Committee of the Whole report which also disclosed that in 2017, GH₵790m formula was approved.

According to the report GETFund proposed an amount of GH₵20m for Members of Parliament (MPs) to undertake projects and the monitoring of the projects in their constituencies.

GETFund is expected to focus on the provision for social intervention programmes such as Capitation Grant, Feeding Grant to Special Schools, Senior High School subsidy for continuing students this year, 2018 whiles additional subsidy for continuing Day student of Senior High Schools, Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) subsidy, Counterpart Funding (development of skills for industry projects).

The Fund will also continue the implementation of the following projects and programmes in 2018: Fencing of schools with high risk of encroachment, provision of white boards in schools, construction of kindergarten facilities and regulatory and policy reforms.

Furthermore, other components of the planned programmes and projects of the Fund include: academic facilities and infrastructure, allocation of funds to the Students Loan Trust Fund, Scholarships and procurement of teaching and learning materials. 

Various Allocations

An amount of GH₵60,000 will be provided for each MP for the funding of education related projects in their respective constituencies, amounting to a total of sixteen million, five hundred thousand cedis (GH₵16,500,000.00).

Each MP will also be allocated GH₵15,000, amounting to a total of GH₵4,125,000.00 for the monitoring of education related projects.

Capping of Earmarked Funds

It came to the notice of the Committee that the capping of earmarked funds as provided for by the Earmarked Funds Capping and Realignment Act, 2017 (Act 947) has reduced drastically, funds that should accrue to the GETFund.

For instance, for year 2018, an estimated amount of GH₵1.8billion is expected to accrue to the Fund from the two and one-half percent of the prevailing rate of the Value Added Tax.  However, due to the provisions of Act 947, the estimated accrual of 1.8billion cedis to the Fund,has been capped to GH₵924m .

By: Christian Kpesese/ thePublisher