Oheneba slams Bawumia over 1 student, 1 tablet initiative

Power Fm Broadcaster Oheneba Boamah Bennie has descended heavily on Vice President Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia over what he describes as Bawumia's penchant for peddling falsehood.

The vociferous radio presenter who hosts the battleground on Power 97.9 FM wondered why Bawumia kept on giving loads of promises to Ghanaians yet fulfilled close to nothing.

Oheneba’s rants come on the back of a new promise by the government to distribute free electronic tablets to senior high school students across the country.

Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia while speaking at this year’s New Year School at the University of Ghana, Legon, on January 17 made the announcement of the government’s intention to distribute tablets to schools.

The tablet, according to the Vice President will serve as alternative textbooks for the students.

“This year, we are on course to provide all Senior High School students in Ghana with tablets which are loaded with textbooks on them for their studies. That’s a very game-changing development. We will have past questions preloaded on these tablets that will be distributed,” the Vice President assured.

However, Oheneba believes the promise is not only a misplaced priority but a promise to woo the teenagers to vote for the NPP in next year’s elections.

On the Power FM evening news, Boamah Bennie chastised the Vice President for “lying to the SHS students” and quizzed where the funding would come from, especially as the government has announced that the nation’s coffers are virtually empty.

“Is this not the same people that said the government has no money and therefore opting for a debt exchange programme?,” he questioned. “See, Bawumia is just lying to the people to win votes because hen knows we will be voting next year and by that time, most of the SHS students would have turned 18 hence he is wooing them for votes.”

He further admonished Bawumia to channel his energy to one of the Islamic Senior High Schools in Nalerigu in the East Mamprusi Municipality in the North East Region where the Vice President hails from and provide them with furniture for their dinning hall.

“There are students in your home region, Bawumia, who eat on the bare floor,” he said while narrating that TV XYZ had shown that news story the previous day.

Meanwhile,Ranking Member of Parliament’s Education Committee, Peter Nortsu-Kotoe has questioned the source of funding for the government to distribute free electronic tablets to senior high school students across the country.

Nortsu-Kotoe who is also the MP for Akatsi North wondered why the government will embark on such project amid an economic downturn which has prevented the government from tackling challenges confronting the delivery of education in the country.

Nortsu-Kotoe acknowledged that though there is a need to technologically develop education and its delivery in the country, the time to do so, especially with the distribution of electronic tablets was a misplaced priority at the moment.

“There is a need to develop our education technologically, but we need to take one step at a time. The Vice President has a good idea, but the timing is wrong.

The lawmaker was skeptical about the source of funding to execute the policy because provisions for the initiative were not captured in the 2023 budget.

“There is no provision in the 2023 budget for the procurement of tablets for senior high schools and I know they are going to push that one to GETFund but GETFund is so much overburdened that it cannot meet all the demands required of it because GETFund received only 39 percent of the approved allocation in 2022, and it is going to be worse this year,” he concluded.