According to the Association, the Secretariat’s attempt to change the mode of payment after application for the grants have been made, will only further delay processes for the payment.

[contextly_sidebar id=”yWehCmQT42P658O33TXaRaYzetrK3pBh”]“We are reliably informed by the Secretariat that all beneficiary institutions should collate bank account details of recommended applicants to the Secretariat for direct payment of the Thesis and Bursary Grants to be effected. Though the new mode of payment is ideal, we strongly believe it will only further delay the monies already in arrears. This is not the right time for this to and fro movement of the 2016/2017 bursary and thesis grant,” the GRASAG leadership said.

In a statement signed by the Jacob Apibilla Ayembilla, the National President of GRASAG, the Association said it had no prior knowledge about the plan to change the mode of payment of their grants despite holding various meetings with the scholarship secretariat on other subjects.

“GRASAG, as a major stakeholder, was not consulted before the sudden change in the mode of payment; which we believe is not congenial to the graduate student, at this material moment. The National Executive Committee (NEC) on several occasions met with the Registrar and the entire management team of the Scholarships Secretariat, and this mode of payment never came up in our discussions, we therefore don’t agree,” it said.

GRASAG said while it was ready to cooperate with the Scholarships Secretariat to urgently address the matter, it expects that the Secretariat completes payment of all applicants by Monday, January 15.

“We are by this release giving the government and the Secretariat up to Monday, 15th of January, 2018, to pay all recommended applicants. Graduate students have not been treated fairly, and we need to be treated with utmost respect.”

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By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post GRASAG issues 1-week ultimatum to gov’t over unpaid grants appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

The Association has lamented that the delay in the payment of the allowance, amounting to about GHc4 million, has put the students under undue financial stress and stifled academic endeavors.

The President of GRASAG, Rashid Kwesi Etuaful thus held that “the state should release the bursaries as a matter of urgency.”

Speaking at a press conference in Accra, Mr. Etuaful recounted two months of lobbying at the relevant state agencies like the Ministry of Education yielded no positive results.

He also said the association had no explanation for the delay in payment given there has been the approval for disbursement.

He noted that“the challenge now is that we don’t know why the Ministry of Finance is not paying the money when approval has been given and so we are giving an ultimatum, from now to about [September] 16. They should be able to mobilise the money.”

But if the association’s ultimatum is not heeded to, Mr. Etuaful said, “we are telling the President that we shall come and join him at the Flagstaff House. We will just go and sit there until he gives us the order that the money should be paid.”

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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmoline.com/Ghana

The post Graduate Students to ‘occupy’ Flagstaff House over delayed bursaries appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.