Former President John Dramani Mahama
We may like it or not, but the Free SHS policy remains a key topic in the 2024 electioneering campaign.
Some of us, as a matter of principle, are extremely surprised to hear Mahama claiming forcefully that the NDC started the Free SHS programme and the NPP came and continued it.
My dear reader, if you may recall, during the 2016 electioneering campaign, former President Mahama was captured on tape vehemently emitting: “Hey! That Ghana must not introduce Free SHS on a whimsical promise of a desperate politician”. “Many mistakes have been made by countries in Africa already with Free SHS.”
“The government has budgeted 2 billion cedis for Free SHS for this academic year”. “If you have 2 billion more to spend on education, would you spend all of it on Free SHS, so that even when people can afford to pay, they don’t have to pay?”
It was, therefore, not quite surprising back then when Akufo-Addo expressed his astonishment: “I heard something yesterday that surprised me. The former President stated that my promise to start the free SHS policy was false and just a ploy to deceive Ghanaians. He was strongly against the policy and stated that if he had the money to implement that policy, he will use it for something else. He also said it will take Ghana years to implement it but now he is saying he started the Free SHS, and it’s surprising.”
By implementing the Free SHS, the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia administration has estimably upheld the international human rights provision on free universal secondary education, which is encapsulated in Article 13 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights.
That being said, in recent times, concerned Ghanaians have been questioning the sustainability of the Free SHS implementation due to the obvious challenges.
Of course, like any other policy, the Free SHS has its challenges. However, on the preponderance of probability, the positives outweigh the negatives within the Free SHS implementation.
It must, however, be noted that in the early stages of the policy implementation, the skeptics moved heaven and earth to discredit the policy implementation in order to score cheap political points.
The NDC operatives unabashedly sponsored countless adverts and campaigned against the poverty reduction Free SHS policy during the 2016 electioneering campaign.
Regrettably, however, no less a person than ex-president Mahama has been criticizing Akufo-Addo for implementing the Free SHS policy, allegedly, at the expense of other developmental projects (see: ‘Free SHS crippling other sectors-Mahama, classfmonline.com/ghanaweb.com, 24/02/2018).
Former President Mahama is quoted to have lamented during one of the NDC’s unity health walks: “The problem this government is facing and it is in their interest, is that, Free Senior High School is absorbing all the fiscal space they have and so almost every money you have, you are having to put it into Free Senior High School. So you can’t pay District Assemblies Common Fund, you can’t pay NHIS (National Health Insurance Scheme), you can’t pay GET Fund (Ghana Education Trust Fund), you can’t pay other salaries and things because all your money is going into Free Senior High School.”
Given the circumstances, observers can draw the inference that Mahama does not fancy the Free SHS and therefore he is not ready to spend a huge amount of money to run the policy.
So, it came as a huge surprise to some of us when the 2020 NDC flagbearer, John Dramani Mahama, and his teeming supporters moved heaven and earth to claim ownership of the Free SHS policy. How ironic?
In fact, it would only take a doubting Thomas to challenge the fact that the NDC loyalists, who take pride in the social democratic ideology, are not in the business of promoting the welfare of the masses.
One would have thought that individuals who pride themselves as social democrats would be extremely empathetic to the needs of the masses, but this is not the case with the NDC as a party.
There is no denying or ignoring the fact that the NDC has a penchant for running down or canceling crucial social interventions. It is a sad case of social democrats who do not know how to initiate and manage social interventions.
Truly, the erstwhile NDC government willfully canceled/collapsed the Nurse’s Allowance, the Teacher’s Allowance, SADA, GYEEDA, NHIS, Maternal Care, the School Feeding program, and the Mass Transport System, amongst others.
Given the circumstances, it will not come as a surprise at all if the future NDC government decides to cancel the Free SHS altogether.
Since the inception of the Fourth Republican Constitution, the self-proclaimed social democrats have been opposing social interventions that have been proposed by the successive NPP governments such as the Free Maternal Care, the NHIS, the Metro Mass Transport, the School Feeding Programme, the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP), the Free SHS, amongst others.
It is, therefore, fair to stress that the NDC faithful do not fancy the ‘Comprehensively Free SHS, and hence moving heaven and earth to discredit the expedient poverty alleviation policy implementation.
The opposition NDC operatives’ attitude towards the Free SHS implementation should be a wake-up call to discerning Ghanaians.
Sometimes, one cannot help but admire some of our politicians for their incredible dexterity in systematic propagation of propaganda.
Let us admit, that the never-ending display of hypocrisy by the NDC loyalists is mind-boggling.
What is more pleasing to some of us is that the social mobility improvement Free SHS policy will at least provide a sound and congenial environment for the students to develop to their full potential and to have a reasonable chance of leading productive and creative lives.
However, we cannot vouch for the sustainability of the free SHS policy should Ghanaians make a terrible mistake and hand over the poverty alleviation-free SHS programme back to the NDC shortly.
Our fears stem from the fact that since the implementation of the free SHS policy by the NPP administration, the minority NDC operatives have gathered momentum and called uncountable press conferences with the view to discrediting the policy’s implementation.
Somehow, the minority NDC operatives prefer “progressively free” (whatever that means) to the NPP’s comprehensively free.
Well, they may choose to discredit the Free SHS policy, but the fact remains that the policy will return huge benefits in the long run.
By and large, the vast majority of Ghanaians will benefit immensely from the policy, including my maternal uncle, Oliver, a diehard NDC supporter, who had earlier criticized the poverty alleviation Free SHS.
But despite my uncle Oliver’s needless and never-ending pessimism, he is likely to reap tremendous benefits and will most likely decline to endorse Mahama to cancel such an advantageous policy.
The credible sources have it that the government will spend more than GH6000 over three years on each student.
So, my uncle Oliver, who has three of his children in SHS, will be pocketing not less than GH18000 over three years.
Who can then persuade my maternal uncle to turn down such a juicy offer and vote for the unrepentant critic of the Free SHS who could well abandon the policy?
It is quite unfortunate to witness how some Ghanaians could easily give in to the manipulating politicians' vague rhetoric and vile propaganda designed to advance their vested interests.
My maternal uncle was amongst the millions of impoverished Ghanaians who were brainwashed by the cunning and manipulating politicians to reject the poverty intervention Free SHS offered during the 2016 electioneering campaign.
If everyone else had voted the same way as Uncle Oliver did, I am not sure his three children would have benefited from any free SHS.
I, for one, do not anticipate Uncle Oliver and the likes benefiting from the Free SHS policy should Ghanaians make a terrible mistake and hand over the poverty alleviation Free SHS policy back to the NDC government shortly.
Clearly, former President Mahama and his brassbound supporters are trying desperately to claim ownership of the poverty alleviation Free SHS, albeit, to the utter disgust of the well-meaning Ghanaians.
