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Amending the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) Act, 2000 (Act 581) will not only help to support private universities but will make the fund more innovative, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Akatsi North Constituency in the Volta Region, Peter Kwasi Nortsu-Kotoe, has posited.
Making a case for the amendment of Act 581, Mr Nortsu-Kotoe said since the law came into being, there had been several developments in the education sector hence the need to amend the law to meet the growing needs of tertiary education.
The MP, who is also a Ranking Member of Parliament’s Education Committee, proposed that key among the reforms needed in the law should include the review of members of the management board of the fund.
He said financial institutions on the board had not played any significant role on the board over the past years.
Describing GETFund as the lifeline of education in the country, Mr Nortsu-Kotoe said GETFund must also be given the mandate to own the hostels in the various universities for investment purposes.
That, he said, would ensure that the fund was able to take in the needed revenue to complement its budget and pay contractors on time.
He was speaking at a forum organised by the fund in Accra which brought together stakeholders in the education sector to share their concerns and suggestions for the improvement of the fund.
It was also an opportunity for GETFund to inform its key stakeholders of the projects and successes chalked up so far.
The forum was on the theme, “Innovation: a must to achieving positive outcomes”.
The Director of Funds and Procurement Management Unit of the Ministry of Education, Nii Lantey Quarcoopome, emphasised that it was important for GETFund to be an integral part of the pre-contact processes of projects in the sector.
He said the introduction of no objection requirements in GETFund projects would ensure that projects were executed in line with laid down agreements of the fund.
The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Chamber of Construction Industry (GhCCI), Emmanuel A. Cherry, said he was excited about the fund migrating its manual-based processes onto a digital management system.
He, however, called for close collaboration between the fund and his members to ensure that contractors understood processes such as e-procurements, among others to be able to apply for contract bidding online since many of his members were not digitally savvy.
For his part, the Administrator of the Fund, Dr Richard Ampofo Boadu, said so far, a total of 2,731 infrastructure projects had been completed by the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) between 2019 and 2023.
These projects include 1,430 at the basic school level, 1,144 for the senior high school level and 138 at the tertiary level.
In addition to that, 15 E-blocks initiated by the previous administration, two technical and vocational education and training (TVET) centres and two model schools have also been completed.
Dr Boadu said about GH¢800,000,000 had so far been paid to contractors who were awarded with the projects which constituted about 96 per cent of the cost.
