A former Second Lady Mrs. Matilda Amissah-Arthur has mounted a spirited defence for her controversial chalk comment two years ago in Akyem Kukurantumi, justifying that she said nothing wrong.
According to her, she was taken out of context because she was reiterating calls for collective support of stakeholders in helping fix challenges facing education since quality education strives on shared responsibility.
“I did apologize saying that, but you see, what I said was that, it is not only government that should give those things and that PTA, Old Students, the town and everybody should support and that was exactly what I said, and I was talking about partnership and here we are today in Ghana aren’t we talking about partnership? So what did I say wrong?” Mrs. Amissah-Arthur asked.
She was subjected to severe public backlash in July 2015 after she snapped at the headmistress of Kukurantumi for requesting chalk when she presented five computers and 500 books to the Presby Day School upon a request.
The former Second Lady in an interview with the media Thursday at Mamfe-Akuapem during the launch of Mamfe Girl Child Empowerment Day by MENFYD Foundation, an NGO, maintained she did not err and will continue to drum the fact that education is a shared responsibility.
“I am not going to stand here and say because it is not my government so I’m not saying that again, I said that in Kukurantumi, I’m saying that today that it is not only government it is everybody’s responsibility and everybody must chip in.”
She added: “I have told you what I said and the context which I said it, I was talking about partnering government, I was talking about people volunteering and helping and I made mention of PTA, Old students, Town people helping and I’m saying that the government alone cannot help be it NDC government or NPP government. I still stand on the point that there need to be partnership, there is the need to be volunteering.”
Source: Ghana/Starrfmonline.com/103.5FM/Kojo Ansah
