Deputy Education Minister Denies Sanitary Pad Procurement Scandal Claims

Deputy Minister for Education, Dr. Clement Apaak, has vigorously refuted accusations by the Parliamentary to that the government is inflating the cost of sanitary pads procured for distribution to female students.

The controversy arose after the MP for Old Tafo, Vincent Ekow Assafuah, publicly questioned the allocation of GH¢292 million for the procurement of 6.6 million sanitary pads, suggesting the figure was inconsistent with current market prices and indicated potential financial irregularities.
Speaking to journalists in Parliament on Wednesday, November 26, Dr. Apaak dismissed the claims as “baseless” and politically motivated, asserting that the Minority was actively trying to manufacture a “scandal” to damage the reputation of the Mahama administration.
’Chop-Bar Arithmetic’ and Political Intent
Dr. Apaak strongly argued that the Old Tafo MP’s cost calculations were deliberately misleading.
“For the Honourable Member of Parliament to disingenuously perform what the Minister for Education, Haruna Iddrisu, has described as chop-bar arithmetic, we can only conclude that it is yet another desperate attempt to try and enthuse the existence of a scandal to the John Dramani Mahama-led government so that the decomposing elephant can seek to equalise,” Dr. Apaak stated.

The Deputy Minister was adamant that no wrongdoing has occurred: “There is no scandal. There would never be a scandal. The NDC under John Dramani Mahama, the Minister of Education, has not procured a pack of sanitary pads at 45 Ghana cedis and will never do so,” he insisted.
Statistics and Programme Reach
Dr. Apaak maintained that the government has been transparent and is committed to ensuring value for money in the implementation of the initiative.
He provided concrete numbers on the distribution and beneficiary reach of the “life-changing” programme, which he stated is being implemented with integrity:
Total Pads Distributed: 3.9 million pads have been distributed to pupils in 20,744 public basic schools, and an additional 2.6 million pads have been supplied to girls in 906 senior high and TVET institutions. This brings the total supply to 6.5 million pads (close to the procured 6.6 million).
Total Female Beneficiaries:
398,701 pupils in basic schools have benefited.
1.1 million girls at the Junior High School (JHS) level have received pads.
968,285 girls in Senior High Schools (SHS) have benefited.
Overall Reach: The intervention has so far reached a total of 2,578,915 female students from primary five up to senior high school.
The Ministry maintains that the transparent statistics prove the absence of a financial scandal.

Source: Felix Nyaaba/expressnewsghana.com