A report of the Auditor –General have revealed how the monies meant to assist needy students were abused by the
GETFund Secretariat to the benefit of unqualified and specially selected individuals.
Most of the abuse happened during the reign of former President John Dramani Mahama.
This was contained in an audit by the Auditor-General. The period covered was between 2012 to 2018, and at the
time Mr. Daniel Yaw Domelevo was the Auditor-General. The details are contained in an audit titled ‘Performance
Audit Report of the Auditor-General on the Administration of Scholarships by GETFUND Secretariat’.
It is dated 8 th November, 2019.
In a ‘Transmittal Letter to the Speaker of Parliament, Mr. Domelevo stated that the performance audit report on the
administration of Scholarships by GETFund Secretariat is in accordance with the Auditor- General’s mandate under
Article 187(2) of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana and Sections 13(e) and 16 of the Audit Service Act, 2000 (Act
584).
He stated that the purpose of the audit was to ascertain whether GETFund acted in accordance with its mandate as
stated in the GETFund Act, 2000 (Act 581) with regards to administration of funds for scholarships. The audit
covered the period 2012 to 2018.
“We found that in 2009, GETFund Secretariat curtailed scholarship funding to the Scholarship Secretariat contrary
to Section 2(2b) of the GETFund Act, 2000 (Act 581) and rather purportedly administered scholarships under
Section 2(2e) of the Act. In granting scholarships, GETFund Secretariat did not institute a robust selection process
from 2012 to 2017 leading to haphazard granting of scholarships to Ghanaians to those who really needed it.
GETFund Secretariat did not also follow the requirements of the Financial Administration Act, 2003, (Act 654) to
establish systems, policies and procedures to ensure the efficient and effective use of public funds. In so doing,
GETFund Secretariat did not efficiently expend GH¢1.8 million of public funds from 2012 to 2018.
For instance, tuition was paid for applicants who had not met admission requirements. Some of these people are who
had not met admission requirements are Abraham Titiati, University of Bournemouth who received GBP 15,645.00.
Applicant changed from University of Bournemouth to Anglia Ruskin University because University of
Bournemouth requested for an English test score and according to the student, the period to write the exams was
short therefore, he had to change to the latter, which did not require an English test score.
Another was one Abdul Aziz Bawa, Robert Gordon University who received a scholarship worth GBP 11,300.00
but failed in English proficiency test. Another was one Mu-Awana Amidu Koriwie (Coventry University) who
received GBP 13,013.00. The University required English proficiency scores which applicant did not have. Another
was one Kenneth Asima (Robert Gordon University) who received a scholarship worth GPB 9,500.00. Once again
the University required English proficiency scores which applicant did not have.
In all, on just these four, GETFund spent a total of GBP 49,458.00.
“We made some recommendations to help GETFund Secretariat improve upon its handling of Scholarship funds,”
the Transmittal Letter, signed by Mr. Daniel Yaw Domelevo, then Auditor-General, stated. It was directed to the
Right Hon. Speaker Office of Parliament, Parliament House Accra.
(Below is the Executive Summary to the Audit Report).
PERFORMANCE AUDIT OF THE AUDITOR-GENERAL ON THE ADMINISTRATION OF SCHOLARSHIPS
BY GETFUND SECRETARIAT
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
According to Section 2(2b) of the GETFund Act, 2000 (Act 581), the Fund is to provide supplementary funding to
the Scholarship Secretariat for granting of scholarships to gifted but needy students to study in second cycle and
accredited tertiary institutions in Ghana. The Act made a provision under Subsection 2(2)(e) that allows GETFund
Secretariat to promote other educational activities.
2. GETFund Secretariat breached the object of the Fund and administered the scholarship themselves, and illegally
funded foreign scholarships thus, acting outside their mandate.
3. Prior to 2009, GETFund Secretariat allocated and disbursed funds to Scholarship Secretariat in fulfilment of its
obligation in section 2(2)(b) of Act 581. It is observed that GETFund Secretariat discontinued scholarship funding to
the Scholarship Secretariat contrary to Section 2(2b) of Act 581 and administered scholarships on its own.
4. It was observed that in administering the scholarships, GETFund Secretariat did not establish any systems,
policies and procedures to ensure the economic, efficient and effective use of public funds. The GETFund
Administrator, at his discretion, made all decisions on who to award scholarships, leading to the imprudent
administration of scholarships from 2012 to 2018.
5. With a Board of Trustees in place to oversee the operations of GETFund Secretariat, it was expected that, the
Board would restrain the Administrator (2012-2016) when the Administrator was going overboard under its watch.
Instead, the Board did not exercise its oversight responsibility to restrain the Administrator from using his discretion
to award scholarships which depleted the Fund. The Board continuously discussed the way the scholarship budget
was being over-spent and the need to streamline the spending on scholarship awards but it failed to act on its
decisions. GETFund Secretariat through its actions wasted public funds entrusted to its care.
6. GETFund Secretariat did not institute measures to ensure scholarship expenditures stayed within scholarship
budgets. The GETFund Secretariat exceeded scholarship allocation amount by 300 per cent from 2012 to 2014 and
over 100% in 2015, 2016 and 2018; whilst in 2017, it exceeded its budgetary allocation amount by 60.98 per cent.
7. Additionally, GETFund failed to establish a robust selection process to ensure the scholarships were granted to
gifted but needy Ghanaians. The selection process for scholarship award by GETFund Secretariat was non-
structured, unfair, dominated by one person and porous. This allowed unqualified applicants to benefit rather than
brilliant but needy Ghanaians as contemplated by Act 581.
8. Finally, GETFund did not institute controls to secure the efficient and effective disbursement of public funds
resulting in the payment of GH¢1,895,238.31 for course extensions, change of schools and cost of deferrals which
could have been minimised.
Recommendations
9. We made the following key recommendations to GETFund Secretariat: a) The Auditor General may disallow the
expenditures by GETFund Secretariat in the management of foreign scholarships which he deems were contrary to
law and surcharge the persons involved. b) The GETFund should: abide by Section 2(2b) of the GETFund Act
and give funds to Scholarships Secretariat for the administration of local scholarships and desist from administering
foreign scholarships; stop administering local scholarships as their continuous engagement in administration of
local scholarship constitutes duplication of duties and clearly not a mandate of GETFund; c) For the Secretariat to be
more prudent in its spending on scholarships we recommended that the Board of Trustees should effectively
exercise its oversight on the Administrator to prevent the wanton spending of public funds.
CHAPTER THREE
FINDINGS
GETFund did not use the fund in accordance with the object of ACT 581 35. The GETFund Act’s objective is to
provide monies to supplement education at all levels of education. The Act under Session 2. 2(b)lists all what the
GETFund Secretariat should expend funds on.
These are:
a. To provide financial support to the agencies and institutions under the Ministry of Education through the Ministry,
for the development and maintenance of essential academic facilities and infrastructure in public educational
institutions, particularly tertiary institutions
b. To provide supplement funding to the Scholarship Secretariat for the grant of scholarships to gifted but needy
students for studies in second-cycle and accredited tertiary institutions in Ghana
c. To contribute monies from the fund towards the operation of students’ loans scheme for students in accredited
tertiary institutions through loan scheme mechanisms and agencies, approved by the Minister
d. To provide through the National Council on Tertiary Education grants to tertiary institutions
i. To train brilliant students as members of Faculty
ii. To undertake research and other academic programmes of relevance to national development
e. To provide monies to support such other educational activities and programmes for the promotion of education as
the Minister in consultation with the Board may determine
36. According to Session 2.2(b) of the GETFund Act, when it comes to funding of scholarships, the law dictates that
the fund should be for secondary and tertiary education within the country, in other words, the money is for local
scholarships and not foreign scholarships.
37. The GETFund Secretariat without using the due process to amend the law, decided to administer the scholarship
scheme in violation of the law.
12 |Performance Audit Report of the Auditor-General on the Administration of Scholarships by GETFund
According to GETFund’s Annual Reports from 2012 to 2018, the Secretariat expended GH¢425,698,973 on
Scholarships on 3,112 beneficiaries out of which 2,217 persons were unlawfully granted scholarships to study
abroad. The public body in Ghana mandated to run a foreign scholarship scheme is the Scholarships Secretariat.
38. GETFund administered scholarships (local and foreign) even though it did not have the mandate to do so. The
amount of money spent on foreign scholarships could have paid for many more Ghanaians to gain tertiary level
education as intended by the Act. Very disturbing is the fact that gifted but needy students ended up borrowing from
the student’s loan scheme or elsewhere while officials who are highly placed in society took the scholarships not
even for their wards but for themselves.
Conclusion
39. GETFund Secretariat in contravention to the object of the Fund,
(i) administered the scholarship themselves, and (ii) illegally funded foreign scholarships, therefore acting ultra
vires.
Recommendation
40. The Auditor General may disallow the expenditures by GETFund Secretariat in the management of foreign
scholarships which he deems were contrary to law and surcharge the persons involved.
GETFund administered scholarships without sound principles 41. In 2008, GETFund Secretariat curtailed
scholarship funding to the Scholarship Secretariat contrary to Section 2(2)(b) of the GETFund Act, 2000 (Act 581)
and began administering scholarships, purportedly under Section 2(2)(e) of the Act. Having decided to administer
scholarships, the GETFund management under the Financial Administration Act, 2003 (Act 654) was obliged to
establish systems, policies and procedures that will ensure the economic, efficient and effective use of public funds.
We examined the awarding principles of five scholarship awarding institutions for best practice and noted that the
institutions had established the following principles to administer scholarships: System for determining funding
available for scholarships; Policy on eligibility for scholarship; and Scholarship administration process –
publicity of scholarships available, application process, selection process, monitoring, administrative and fiscal
reporting.
System for determining funding available 42. The sampled scholarship granting institutions had dedicated sources of
funding from which scholarships were funded. For example, the GNPC Oil and Gas Learning Foundation has the
Petroleum Holding Fund as its source of funding (Section 2(1) of the Petroleum Revenue Management Act, 2011
(Act 815). Scholarship Secretariat has GETFund (GETFund Act, Act 581, 2(2)(b)) for local scholarships and the
Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship is funded by the Australian Government. We noted
that all the institutions managing scholarships except GETFund Secretariat were independent of the funding source.
GETFund Secretariat applied part of the accrued funds for scholarships to administer scholarship in duplication of
the mandate of the Scholarships Secretariat.
43. GNPC scholarship is administered by GNPC-OGLF and RTP by Department of Education, Australia. Every
year, based on the amount available to the administering agencies, they set apart a percentage to fund interested
applicants to pursue various courses of study. The administering agency sets limit on the amount it can disburse in a
year. GNPC-OGLF for the past four
14 |Performance Audit Report of the Auditor-General on the Administration of Scholarships by GETFund
years of its operation, has stayed within its yearly budget of $3 million for scholarships.
44. The 2012 and 2013 distribution formulae to Parliament for approval showed that GETFund allocated funds to
Scholarship Secretariat. GETFund however did not release the funds but used it to support its own administration of
scholarships which was in violation of the GETfund Act and also not in consonance with best practice. GETFund
from 2014 allocated funds for scholarships in the distribution formula but failed to allocate a portion to the
Scholarship Secretariat as required by Section 2(2)(b) of Act 581. It rather applied all the monies to its own
scholarship portfolio. In administering the scholarships, GETFund consistently exceeded its yearly budget by an
average of 215.9 percent from 2012 to 2018.
Policy for eligibility for scholarship 45. The five scholarship administering agencies we examined for best practice
provided the criteria for awarding scholarships in the publications sent out. The criteria comprising fiscal
consideration, nationality, type of course and age were also reflected in the supporting documents to be included in
an application. Therefore, applicants who met the criteria set out in the eligibility criteria were considered for
evaluation. For the GNPC-OGLF, one of the eligibility criteria for award was that, the applicant’s course of study
should be in the petroleum industry as the Foundation was set up to support the growth of local expertise in the
petroleum industry.
46. GETFund Secretariat had no policy on eligibility, as a result, granting of scholarships were based on the
discretion of the Administrator. GETFund Secretariat ventured into administering scholarships which was the
preserve of Scholarships Secretariat without establishing a policy to determine eligibility for award.
15 |Performance Audit Report of the Auditor-General on the Administration of Scholarships by GETFund
Administrative process 47. The five scholarship awarding institutions we studied, advertised scholarships in the
print media and on their websites4. They also set up panels to evaluate scholarship applications to select applicants
who met their criteria and had established controls to ensure applicants fulfilled all requirements before payment of
fees and allowances which were also paid promptly. The institutions also monitored progress of beneficiaries and
reported on the overall performance of the scholarship scheme to their governing boards.
48. We noted that GETFund Secretariat from 2012 to 2017 did not advertise scholarship applications. However,
individuals who were aware of GETFund scholarships, sent applications addressed to the Administrator throughout
the year. Also, instead of setting up a panel to evaluate the applications, the Administrator unilaterally selected
applicants to benefit from the scholarship awards. We however, noted that GETFund advertised “Applications for
Scholarships” for the 2018/2019 academic year on its website.
49. The five institutions in their sponsorship letters, requested that schools submit progress on beneficiaries through
semester reports. This enabled them monitor the academic progress of the beneficiaries to determine whether they
met the academic performance targets in their agreement to continue on the sponsorship. GETFund Secretariat did
not request in its sponsorship letters for schools to submit progress reports to enable them monitor the academic
progress of scholarship beneficiaries for continuous sponsorship. The audit team found progress reports on four
students submitted voluntarily by their school and not at the request of GETFund Secretariat as shown in Table 2.
4 Scholarship Secretariat, GNPC Oil and Gas Learning Foundation, Australian Government Research Training
Program (RTP) Scholarship, Mwalimu Nyerere African Union Scholarship Scheme, Chevening Scholarships
50. GNPC-OGLF reported to its Board of Trustees on the administration of scholarships by the Foundation every
year. We found that GETFund Secretariat also reported on the administration of scholarships to its Board.
51. The lack of a proper structure to evaluate applications resulted in GETFund Secretariat paying full tuition fees
for four applicants who had not met all requirements of the schools they applied for admission as shown in Table 3.
GETFund Secretariat paid additional GBP 27,005.00 after the applicants met all the admission requirements.
52. Also due to the lack of progress report on beneficiaries from schools to GETFund Secretariat, the Secretariat was
unable to monitor the performance of beneficiaries leading to many having to change their courses of study and
others spending longer periods in completing their study at additional cost.
53. With a Board of Trustees in place to oversee the operations of GETFund Secretariat, we expected the Board to
query the Administrator for dominating the selection process. Instead, the Board sat aloof and allowed the
Administrator to use his discretion to award scholarships and deplete the allocation for scholarships. This was
regardless that the Board in many of its quarterly meetings discussed the way GETFund Secretariat was going
beyond its scholarship budget and the need to streamline the spending on scholarship awards. The Board did not
implement its intention to streamline scholarship award.
Conclusion
54. GETFund Secretariat violated the GETFund Act by not providing Scholarships Secretariat funds to support local
scholarships from 2012 to 2017. It did not establish systems, policies and procedures to ensure the economic,
efficient and effective use of public funds. The former GETFund Administrator made all decisions on who to award
scholarships to at his discretion, leading to the haphazard administration of scholarships from 2012 to 2016. The
Board of Trustees (2012 to 2016) did not exercise its oversight responsibility to stop the Administrator from using
his discretion to award scholarships and deplete the Fund.
