Tema, 17, GNA - Most boarding students of Tema Secondary who reported for school on Friday were refused entry into the school compound for non-payment of fees. Consequently, students coming from far away got stranded at the main gate of the school where accounts staff had positioned themselves to inspect the banker's draft or receipts of payment of the fees before they were allowed in. Those from Accra and nearby towns informed their parents/guardians on telephones about the situation and they came to bail them out of the predicament. Day students are expected to face similar situation when they report for school next Monday.

When contacted, Mr. Peter Nsiah-Twum, accountant of the school indicated that the action taken by the school is based on the fact that the students fail to pay their fees even when asked to do so by instalment. In view of this, a total amount of 144.5 million cedis is outstanding in fees for last term for students to pay and when he pulled a list of students who had not paid, it turned out to be that majority, both day and boarders were in arrears.

He indicated however, that parents/guardians had been made aware at parent teacher association meetings of the situation and the need to pay fees promptly to enable the authorities have funds to run the school and complained how an institution could be run without funds..

Mr Nsiah-Twum pointed out that the authorities were prepared to accept fees paid by instalments and this was negotiable, saying that they were not accepting crossed cheques because, "there had been several occasions when cheques even those coming from the companies and organisations, including district assemblies for students with scholarships got bounced." The accountant explained that external auditors who audited the school records expressed surprise at the huge outstanding fees and recommended stringent efforts to collect them in order to run the school efficiently.

Portion of the auditor's observation stated: "even though management is making efforts to collect arrears of fees students we advise that more efforts should be put into the collection of fees." He said boarders total about 1,000, who are to pay a fee of 689,000 cedis per term each of the 500 day students is paying 174,000 cedis. A parent admitted that though they were made aware of the situation at PTA meetings he pleaded with the authorities to be flexible in the payment of fees by accepting cheques and cash but, this was rejectec by the accountant.