It has emerged that the GETFund Secretariat did not institute measures to ensure scholarship expenditures stayed within scholarship budgets.
The GETFund Secretariat exceeded scholarship allocation amount by 300 percent from 2012 to 2014 and over 100% in 2015, 2016 and 2018; whilst in 2017, it exceeded its budgetary allocation amount by 60.98 percent, this is according to the Auditor-General in an audit report.
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The Auditor-General also faulted the GETfund for its haphazard doling out of scholarships without following its own laid down procedures.
However, according to the Auditor-General again, GETFund Secretariat’s budget and expenditure profile from 2012 to 2018 had large variances between allocations for scholarships and actual expenditures GETFund Secretariat spent more than three times the budget allocation for scholarships each year from 2012 to 2014. In 2015 and 2016 it spent about 140 percent more than its budgetary allocations and spent 60.98 percent more than its budget in 2017 and 101.7 percent more in 2018. GETFund Secretariat did not honor its legal obligation to provide money to Scholarships Secretariat for local scholarships.
Table which shows a summary of GETFund Secretariat’s allocation for scholarships and expenditure profile.
When the Auditor-General approached the former Administrator, he, however, agreed that GETFund Secretariat exceeded its budgetary allocation from 2012 to 2016. This according to him was due to conditions beyond his control such as:
• Depreciation of the cedi during the period under review. “Even though foreign universities fees are denominated in foreign currencies and fixed during the year, the depreciation of the cedi resulted in an increase of fees in cedi terms thereby throwing the Fund’s budget overboard”
• Delay in the release of funds by the Ministry of Finance resulted in an increase in the payment of fees in Cedis due to exchange rate fluctuations
• Genuine political/social pressures also resulted in the award of scholarships outside the budget
The current administrator (from 2017) also agreed that GETFund was not diligent in determining the numbers before budget allocations were made from 2012 to 2016. “This situation occurred because of pressure to meet certain requirements of manpower needs of Government. Also, most of the students were unable to complete their courses within agreed timelines as a result of the inability to fund them promptly for their research studies hence extensions and other unbudgeted expenses were incurred. The adverse variances were also as a result of exchange rate losses due to the delay in payments. He added that currently, GETFund has put in place a disciplined payment system to ensure prompt payment of scholarship to beneficiaries and that all arrears have been paid to date and the students’ allowances are better managed”