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A Deputy Minister for Finance has debunked claims that the Free Senior High School policy will be affected by the conditions to be spelled out by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) following the government’s decision to seek a bailout.
According to Abena Osei-Asare, the government’s flagship programmes like the free SHS, and Agenda 111 among others, will not be scrapped.
“We want to assure people that we have been here [at the IMF] before and irrespective of that we still ensured development… and this time will be no different.
“From 2017 to 2019, we still implemented the school feeding under an IMF programme and we even expanded it. In 2017 when we came it was around 1.3 million children [benefiting from school feeding], but in 2019 we had moved to almost two million children under the IMF programme. In September 2017 under an IMF programme, we did implement Free Senior High School programme,” she said Accra-based Asaase radio
She assured that the government has plans to stabilize the current economic situation.
With the government’s plans to maintain the policies, she is optimistic that social interventions such as free SHS, school feeding programs, and others will be preserved to continue to serve low-income Ghanaians.
“We have plans in place that we believe will help us stabilize the economy… other bilateral neighbours will also come in to help us in building back the economy.
“So, like I am saying the government will do everything possible to protect social intervention programmes that we believe will protect livelihoods and also cause the people who are economically low to thrive,” Abena Osei-Asare added.
