The Ghana Education Trust (GET) Fund has provided an update on its earnings from loans and bonds as of July 2022.
According to the Fund, a total of GHC 3.4 billion has been raised by the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) through its loans and bonds programme as of June this year.
This was revealed by the Financial Controller at GETFund, Alexis K. Asuinura, during a conference on education financing organised by Africa Education Watch in Accra.
Giving a breakdown of the figure, Mr Asuinura indicated that GH¢1.567 billion was raised from syndicated loans; GH¢ 2.622 billion from bond proceeds; syndicated loans refinanced was GH¢ 1.214 billion; total net proceeds were GH¢ 2.975 billion while that of syndicated loans Debit Service Reserve Account (DSRA) was GH¢ 443 million.
Getting into how the fund was spent, GETFund indicated that it was used for the construction of classrooms and dormitories, the building of new model schools, the construction of a TVET centre of excellence, the purchase of buses, furniture, teaching and learning materials, and 2016 unpaid claims and certificates resulting from ongoing projects.
According to GETFund, it has initiated over 2259 projects across the country since 2017. Out of this, 1,131 fall under projects for basic school education, while secondary education, model schools, TVET Centres, and tertiary education had 1052, nine, five, and 54, respectively.
About the GETFund
The Ghana Education Trust (GET) Fund is a public trust set up by the Ghanaian Government to support the delivery of quality education to citizens from the basic to tertiary level through dynamic funding policies aimed at ensuring the equitable provision of essential resources for all levels of education to all segments of the Ghanaian population.
Created by Act 581 of 2000, the primary objective of the GETFund is to provide finance to supplement the provision of education still underground to leave the mine through the exit points where public security personnel are stationed.
The company also pleaded to work with authorities to ensure that activities at all levels.
The sources of funding of the GETFund is 2.5 per cent value added tax(VAT)or any other higher rate as Parliament may determine; investment income; Parliament allocations; grants, donations and gifts and vested property.
GETFund outstanding projects
Speaking on ongoing projects, Mr. Asuinura mentioned that the fund currently has about 3,609 active projects. Out of this, there are 1,805 continuing projects in basic education, there are 1,394 in senior high schools, nine in model schools, 65 in E-blocks, three in TVET Centres, and 333 in tertiary.
Also, between 2019 and 2021, vehicles distributed to the various agencies and institutions under the Ministry of Education summed up to 2,718. Regarding furniture, 677,470 items had been distributed to basic and secondary schools within the same period.
He disclosed that this year, the GH¢ 1.1 billion they had targeted to raise wouldn’t be possible to do so because investors were asking for more, and they wouldn’t be able to give that due to the current high inflation rate.
Source: The Independent Ghana