Former Deputy Finance Minister and Member of Parliament for Atiwa East, Abena Osei Asare, has strongly criticized the government's decision to uncap the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) as part of its 2025 budget strategy.
Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show on Wednesday, March 12, she questioned the logic behind using GETFund to finance the Free Senior High School (Free SHS) policy, arguing that the fund was primarily intended for educational infrastructure, not recurrent expenses such as feeding and other consumables. "The government cannot say that the uncapped GETFund is what they are going to use to fund the Free SHS because when you look at the GETFund act, it is more of infrastructure and the Free SHS is more of goods and services because we need to pay for food and other stuff which are more of consumption," she stated.
She further accused the government of diverting critical oil revenue that was previously used to support Free SHS into "The Big Push" initiative without providing clear details on how that money will be spent. "If you tell us that you are uncapping GETFund and you are going to use that to fund Free SHS, it is neither here nor there. "We were using oil revenue to pay but when you look at the 2025 budget, every expenditure we made with oil revenue in 2024 has been taken off and channeled into The Big Push meanwhile we don't know what it involves," she added.
Osei Asare's remarks highlight growing concerns over the transparency and sustainability of Ghana's education financing under the current administration.
