Government has disbursed an amount GH¢667,793,936.27 to pay for outstanding debt owed contractors under the Gha­na Education Trust Fund (GETFund).

The money released through the GET­Fund constitutes part payment of the total claims and certificates issued and raised as at the end of November this year.

A statement issued in Accra and signed by Mr Isaac Asiedu-Dei, the Public Relations Officer of the Fund, disclosed that release and payments were in fulfilment of a promise made by the Administrator of GETFund, Dr Richard Ampofo Boadu, on Tuesday, November 8, during a stakeholder engagement forum held in Accra.

The statement noted that at the forum, the administrator of the fund assured that processes were far advanced to pay claims covering 867 certified certificates on projects and supplies across the levels of education.

“The Administrator indicated how payments were going to be made via the mix of the funding sources; proceeds from Daakye Plc bond issuance and the gov­ernment releases through the Controller and the Accountant General Department (CAGD) to the coffers of the fund,” the statement said.

It said the processes for the payments actually began in mid-October 2022 with the signing of novation agreements with contractors covering 867 claims ended in November 2022 with the accounts of all contractors duly credited.

Meanwhile speaking to the Ghanaian Times, Mr Asiedu-Dei said the paid claims covered 271 projects executed for basic schools between 2017 and 2022.

The projects he said accounted to about GH¢ 40,925,832.5. While the payments for second cycle schools covered 351 proj­ect certificates with a total sum of GH¢ 434,732,042.82.

Furthermore, he said a total of 242 tertiary sector claims were paid and this amounted to GH¢188,845,374.61.

Touching on other claims from the Ministry of Education paid, he said this amounted to GH¢ 3,290,686.32, stressing that “It must be noted that the Daakye pay­ments covered mainly emergency projects that were awarded from 2017 to 2022 and certificates were received before September 30, 2022.”

He explained the tertiary claims covered about 92 per cent of certificates on legacy projects inherited by the current adminis­tration, received and prepared on or before September 30, 2022, by the fund.

“GETFund will like to assure its owed contractors that plans are in place to settle all outstanding certificates in an effort to complete stalled projects in our schools within the next three years,” he assured.