CDD-Ghana identifies leakages in Capitation Grant disbursement

The Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), on Tuesday identified serious leakages in the disbursement procedure of the Capitation Grant across the country.

“The leakages are observed along the transfer chain, from Ghana Education Service (GES), through the District Education Offices (DEO) down to the beneficiary schools,” Mr Daniel Armah-Attoh, CDD-Ghana Senior Researcher, said at the launch of the a survey report, in Accra.

Mr Armah-Attoh called on the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning and the GES to publish records on the release and disbursement of funds to the districts in the media and on their respective websites for each district to know how much had been released to it by the Ministry.

“The DEOs would then account for the funds received to their respective Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies to ensure effective follow-up to the schools in their various localities for monitoring and verification of receipts,” the CDD-Ghana Senior Researcher said.

Mr Armah-Attoh appealed for evaluation of the spending pattern, assessment of the relationship between allocation, equity and improved quality outcomes in the education sector.

He recommended the formulation and implementation of policy measures that would gradually align education policy outcomes from enrolment explosion as a result of the capitation grant.

“There is the need to improve monitoring and the internal management and implementation processes of the capitation grant, particularly reviewing and revising its implementation guidelines to meet the changing trend,” Mr Armah-Attoh stated.

Mr Francis Tsegah, Board Member of CDD-Ghana who launched the report, said government’s interventions over the years were aimed at increasing and retaining quality teachers in the classroom and ensuring all children of school going age had access to education.

He said that the commitment to transform the education sector had led to increase in budgetary allocations averaging about 25 per cent of national budget.

“Teachers’ emoluments constitute the largest amount of more that 80 per cent of the education budget….. on the other side of the coin, the Capitation Grant was introduced to abolish the payment of schools fees that subverted universal access to education,” Mr Tsegah said.

The study was conducted in eight public primary schools in the Western Region, representing the costal belt, 12 in Ashanti Region, representing the forest belt, and 10 from the Northern Region, representing the savannah belt.

The Government of Ghana set up the Capitation Grant during the 2005/2006 academic year, and under the scheme, every public primary school receives an amount of money for each pupil enrolled per year.

Source: GNA