The Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) has raised an alarm that the implementation of the Free Senior High School (Free SHS) is fraught with massive procurement breaches and possible corruption.
PIAC in its 2018 and 2019 monitoring report noted that though the policy directly resulted in improved enrolment and feeding of students, the flip side of providing textbooks, uniforms and jerseys, infrastructure, among others, were being threatened by a lack of transparency in procurement processes.
According to PIAC, the lack of advice to the recipient schools on the value of goods supplied smacks of corruption and the lack of transparency provides cover for cost manipulation.
“Some schools experience delays in receipt of funds, sometimes transferred in tranches within or across terms. About 85 per cent of the schools visited had to rely on the funds of the non-free SHS students to cater for all streams of students until funds are disbursed from the Free SHS Secretariat. If this is not addressed, it will impact negatively on the running of the schools when the programme runs a full stream,” portions of the report read.
PIAC has therefore recommended that the government must ensure that disbursements to the schools are done expeditiously as the non-free SHS students phase out, to avoid closure of the schools and disruptions to the academic calendar.