2023 BECE: WAEC won't be able to mark or grade if govt fails to settle debt – Dr. Apaak

Dr. Clement Apaak, the Member of Parliament for Builsa South has said that the West African Examination Council (WAEC) would find it difficult to undertake marking or grading of the 2023 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) if the government fails to settle its GH¢ 55 million debt owed the examination body.

According to him, it was astonishing when he learned that the government paid GH¢10.5 million out of the total GH¢70 million owed WAEC.

Dr. Apaak emphasised that the inability of the government to pay the debt on time could hamper the process of the examination body in carrying out its obligations.

In an interview with the TV3 On Ghana Tonight, on August 7, 2023, Dr. Clement Apaak called on the government to pay the debt owed to WAEC to enable them carry out their mandate to avoid any mishap.

“ It comes to us as a shock and surprise that WAEC is now telling us that contrary to what the government had indicated, only a paltry GH¢10.5 million out of about GH¢70 million has been provided.

“So we will like to call on the government to immediately make the resources available to WAEC because if that does not happen after the papers have been written, they wouldn’t be marked and they wouldn’t be graded. This is a very dire situation that calls for urgent attention,” he said according to 3news.com.

Meanwhile, the Head of Public Affairs at the West Africa Examination Council (WAEC), John Kapi indicated that the government has paid GH¢10.5 million out of the GH¢70 million and demanded swift payment of the debt to facilitate its obligations.

“So far for BECE 2021 and 2022, yes we have received the arrears but for this year 2023, we received about GH¢10.5 million which is 15 percent of the total payment due. So obviously there are still some arrears that should be settled. They promise of course that they are going to send some money to us so we are waiting.

“So far what we’ve been able to do is the printing for what we are conducting. But for the marking and final processing of the result, we will have to get some more money otherwise sections of the process will suffer,” 3news.com quoted him as having said.



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