Community SHSs were not built in NDC stronghold – Prof. Opoku Agyeman

Former Minister of Education, Prof. Jane Naana Opoku Agyemang has dismissed claims by the Deputy Majority Leader, Adwoa Sarfo that then NDC government built the Community Day Senior High Schools exclusively in its stronghold.

Adwoa Safo who’s also Member of Parliament for Dome-Kwabenya constituency, is upset that the previous NDC administration wants to deliberately take undue credit for the Kwabenya Community Senior High School(SHS) established in her constituency.

Adwoa Safo setting the records straight said, it is absurd for the NDC administration to claim ownership of the Kwabenya SHS project, when they are aware that all the Community Day SHSs built by the former President John Mahama were secured in their strongholds.

According to her, the project was realized through her collaboration with the World Bank.

In a short video that has gone viral on social media, the Dome Kwabenya legislator is seen bashing the Mahama administration over the project saying the revelation was important for the purpose of reminding her constituents of the NPP government’s unparalleled commitment to the development of the nation.

“When we were in opposition things were tough but we managed to do one or two things that I need to mention, first is this very facility we’re seated in now which is the Secondary school we have here in Dome-Kwabenya. There was no secondary school in this very large constituency. It was through my hardwork that we have this school. It happned that the World Bank which I once worked with was bringing some money into this country for the building of secondary schools for government. I engaged them and they told me if I’m able to get a land with no litigation though my party is not in power they’ll give me one school. NDC built all the secondary schools in their stronghold. We’re the only constituency which is not NDC stronghold that has a secondary school. This should tell you the school is not from government.” Adwoa Safo said.

But in an interview with Kasapa News in reaction to the MP’s claims, Prof. Jane Naana Opoku Agyemang stated that Hon. Adwoa Safo had no hand in the building of the school.

She said that the criteria upon which the schools were built did not include political consideration as the then NDC government’s actions were driven by national interest.

This is the criteria we used. There were some new districts both the NDC and the NPP governments created which most didn’t have a secondary school. Per the District Assembly Act, every new district must have a secondary school, so we proceeded to build a secondary school in these new districts of which Dome-Kwabenya is one, not mindful of whose stronghold it is. We also looked at the population census in the various districts and determined out of the population census the number of students who would be enrolled in school at a particular time and the number of schools in the districts. Depending on the situation, we added one more school to ease congestion of students. We only looked at what will help Ghana and not for political gains.

The former Minister added: “I don’t know that individuals are able to lobby the World Bank for such a project to be built. May be it’s another school she’s talking about, if it’s the Dome-Kwabenya school then I’m really shocked. We have all the documents to show that it was the NDC government that built the school.”