Afrighana Exposed …Attempt To Malign Napo Fails

Mathew Opoku Prempeh

Mischievous agenda by Afrighana Development Watch to dent the Minister of Education, Dr. Mathew Opoku Prempeh and for that matter the government over alleged procurement infractions have turned eggs in the face of the unknown think tank.

Afrighana Development Watch is raising issues over how books are procured at the Ministry of Education but it is turning out all that they said were nothing but falsehood just to malign the Minister of Education and nothing else.

Claims by Afrighana that the Ministry of Education was engaging in Sole Sourcing to procure books have turned out to be palpable false.

What is playing out to be a huge embarrassment to Afrighana is the fact that it was not on top of issues before it hit public on how things are done at the ministry.

Per checks by The Inquisitor, the Ministry of Education deals with some 20 approved publishers and suppliers for supply of books for various schools throughout the country.

What the ministry did was to secure additional books for the 2016/2017 academic year because of increase in enrolment because of because of increase in enrolment as result of the Free Senior High School (Free SHS) programme.

In order to the right thing, the ministry wrote to the Public Procurement Authority (PPA) for approval for additional supply of books
With that the ministry dealt with companies that had already supplied the ministry with books. It was even the PPA that wrote to those companies for additional supply of books.

It was not one or two companies that did the additional supply but all companies that were approved by the National Council for Curriculum Assessment (NACA) and supplied book before the need for additional books arose.

The Ministry of Education cannot deal with any company that is not approved by NACA to supply books for schools.
It is therefore never true that the ministry dealt with one supplier.

The only time that the ministry dealt with one publisher was during the procurement of book approved by the West Africa Examination Council (WAEC).
WAEC had approved ‘No Sweetness Here’ by Ama Ataa Aidoo and what that meant was that the ministry could only deal with the author and the publishers of the book and no other person or company.
It will be simply unwise to bypass Ama Ataa Aidoo and publishers and deal with any other person or group for the WAEC approved books.

It is instructive to know that Dr. Prempeh, who was the ultimate target of Afrighana Development Watch, has nothing to do with tender at the ministry.

Rather, because of division of labour and transparency, Deputy Minister, Dr. Yaw Adutwum has placed as the Chairman of the Entity Tender Committee (ETC) at the ministry.

Afrighana Development Watch in haste to malign wrote to the Chief of Staff raising issues bothering on procurement of books at the Ministry of Education.

Amazingly, the issues they raised do not have weight because the ministry had been meticulous enough in the procurement of books for schools.

At all material times, the PPA and NACA were involved in the all moves to secure the much-needed books for schools.

What is laughable is the fact that Afrighana would not wait for response from the Chief of Staff but decided to go public with the letter it sent to the Presidency.

 

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