National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS) have threatened to protest against the capping of funds allocated for the operation of the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund).
In 2017, the Funds Capping and Act, now Act 947, was enacted, setting a limit on transfers to earmarked funds at 25% of Tax . This cap was further reduced to 17.5% in 2023, affecting sixteen funds, including the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund). The sector experienced a reduction in total funding, with the GETFund formula allocating only 39% of the levy and diverting the remaining 61% to other sectors.
In an interview on Campus Exclusive, President of the union, Daniel Oppong Kyeremeh, mentioned that NUGS will, in the coming days, embark on protest if the GETFund allocations are not uncapped as demanded.
“We feel it’s long overdue for the GetFunds to be uncapped because we’ve been having media conversations and a lot of things. And I feel it has become very important that the or even policymakers uncap GetFunds to remove education from the circles of worry, the educational sector from the circles of stress. So that’s what we’ll be doing in the coming days.”
The call to uncap the GETFund is one that has been fought against by several educational bodies and think tanks with past NUGS executives haven added their voices to the petition.
NUGS contends that there has been a decline in the funding of education as of the capping of the GETFund and further calls for the uncapping of the fund.
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Story by: Michelle Lartey | univers.ug.edu.gh
