Former President and NDC Flagbearer, John Dramani Mahama, has criticized the Akufo-Addo government for wasting resources while students struggle to pay fees.

“There are many cases where I’ve seen students who have been offered admission but who have not been able to take their places in university because their families simply cannot afford to pay the fees,” Mahama stated.

Mahama, who was discussing the NDC’s policy to absorb level 100 fees for first-year tertiary students, argued that the government has the resources to implement this policy, but is instead wasting money on unnecessary expenses.

“We don’t want, especially in the first year, when the students are coming in for the first time, for them to go through what we call fee stress. And that’s why we call it a no-fee stress policy,” Mahama said.

He cited examples of government waste, including the president’s travel budget and cabinet retreats, saying, “The president, a few years ago, his travel budget for travelling in nine months amounted to 69 million Ghana cedis. They held one cabinet retreat at the presidency. One cabinet retreat. You know how much it costs? It costs almost five million Ghana cedis for a cabinet retreat.”

Mahama estimated that absorbing the academic facility user fees for all level 100 students in public tertiary institutions would cost between 270 to 290 million Ghana cedis, which he believes can be funded by cutting waste in the system.

“We’ve costed it and we approximate that for all first-year students in public tertiary institutions. It should cost anywhere between 270 to about 290 million Ghana cedis. You know the budget for the office of the president? Two billion cedis every year. Two billion cedis. It’s even now that IMF has come, they’ve cut it down,” Mahama said.

He argued that implementing this policy is constitutional, citing Article 25 of the 1992 constitution, which states that higher education shall be made equally accessible to all on the basis of capacity by any appropriate means and in particular by progressive introduction of free education at the tertiary level.

“It’s here. It’s in the constitution. So just absorb,” Mahama said.