Guys, I hold no brief for the Ghana Scholarship Secretariat, but I still can't help but wonder whether the legions of hyperventilating critics in kneejerk competition to pen the most ringing denouncement of the scholarship scheme actually realise how this only makes their position wholly untenable.
Yes, the Fourth Estate titled its scholarship story "Bonanza," and as if that's not slanging enough, the paper zeroed in on the beneficiaries that fall within the class of "politically exposed persons" and talked about unfairness in the distribution of the bursaries.
The takeaway here is the fact that the entire conversation is centered around a few politically exposed persons when indeed the Ghana Scholarship Secretariat actually submitted a whopping 68,411 beneficiaries to the Fourth Estate.
I get that there's no moral argument that justifies wholesale distribution of
scholarship to the political class, but then the question that needs to be asked, but hardly ever, is: why is the report merely focused on the 5% politically exposed persons when the remaining 95% beneficiaries actually include journalists, teachers, and Ghanaians from all walks of life?
Such journalistic drowsiness really wasn't necessary to begin with, and so yes,
sentiment and rhetoric aside the Fourth Estate ought to do the needful by publishing the entire list handed to them by the scholarship secretariat.
If it's about fairness, let's be fair to all and sundry.