A member of the governing New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) communications team in the Upper East Region Johnson Ayine has chastised government appointees and top party members and their relatives who are benefiting from the state scholarship scheme meant for the less privileged.
Johnson Ayine observed that some of these big guns of the NPP and the government lobbied for the scholarship under the pretext of helping needy party members but end up utilizing it on their own education or that of their relatives.
He is particularly infuriated by the fact that some of them received double scholarship while well deserving members of the party and the general populace are left unattended to.
Describing their actions as greed and abuse of power, Johnson Ayine said, “Some of these greedy appointees, they are making our government unpopular which we should be bold enough to tell them in their face to save this government”.
“It’s that they go there and lobby that ‘oh get us scholarship and our people are putting pressure on us’. After taking the scholarship, they turn around and utilize it themselves and feed wrong information. We lie to get opportunities, lie to get to a certain pedestal and cone back to insult those who are really suffering.
Because they sit on radio, sit on TV, personalities’ profiles and they are telling you how they suffered to make it. And make it look like the rest are lazy”.
He was speaking on the back of an investigation by The Fourth Estate that revealed scholarships geared towards helping the education of the brilliant but needy are being awarded to affluent and politically connected persons.
The investigation shows politically connected persons and their relatives including daughter of former National Chairman of the NPP and current board chairman of GNPC Freddie Blay, relative and personal assistant of the Second Lady Samira Bawumia and relative of former Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta and president Nana Akufo-Addo among others have received scholarships while the needy are denied same.
Others have also been found to have received double scholarship even though they are not needy and therefore, are undeserving of such assistance.
