The Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP) has condemned moves by the Akufo-Addo government to fund the much touted free Senior High School (SHS) policy from the Heritage Fund.
According to ACEP, depleting the fund meant for future generations on the policy is not economically prudent.
Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo Marfo, on Tuesday hinted that the free SHS campaign pledge of the president would be funded from the Heritage Fund.
The Heritage Fund is a strategic endowment reserve established to “support the development for future generations when Ghana’s petroleum reserves have been depleted”, according to the Petroleum Revenue Management Act of 2011.
The fund receives nine per cent of the country’s annual petroleum revenue. The Petroleum Act also provides that 21 per cent of annual oil revenues should go into a Stabilisation Fund- to support the economy in dire times – while 70 per cent should be used to support the budget.
The move, according to Ishmael Ackah, the Head of Policy Unit and Energy Policy Advisor at ACEP is unwise.
“The Heritage Fund was supposed to satisfy the principle of inter-generational equity—that the resources we have now belongs to us and the future generation so let us save a percent for them,” he told Naa Dedei Tetteh on Starr Today on Wednesday.
He said taking the total revenue the country receives from its share of the oil revenue, only nine-percent goes to the Heritage Fund stating however that over the past five-year only two percent of the expected nine-percent went into the fund.
“So…what are we doing with ninety-eight percent that I mean we cannot just manage or invest a percentage of that into free SHS instead of going for the Heritage Fund,” argued Dr. Ackah.
He added that “annually we receive about GHc214 million into the Heritage Fund. Now this free SHS thing will cost not less than GHc320million. So who is going to fund the difference?”
For him, the government should recast its focus to the Annual Budget Funding Amount (ABFA) allocation to fund the free SHS policy saying the government requires a little over nineteen percent of it to fund the free SHS policy.
“So we believe that we have enough room to fund the free SHS instead of going to deplete the little we are saving for future generations,” he said.
But the vice chairman of the Mines and Energy committee of Parliament, Joseph Kojo disagrees arguing that funding the Free SHS from the Heritage Fund is prudent.
“I will go for using the fund to educate the [Ghanaian] people,” he said adding that “returns on education stand tall in every country.”
A policy analyst at the Integrated Social Development Center (ISODEC), Dr. Steve Manteaw in an earlier interview urged that the move by government should not be countenanced arguing it is needless to spend the Heritage Fund on recurrent expenditure as it “won’t yield the benefits that we want.”
He described the move as a “lazy man’s option to a difficult task,” in an interview with Accra based Citi FM.
