UK Embassy Reveals documents showing industrial-scale abuse of public funds
TNR Files
Ghana’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom (UK), Sabah Zita Benson, has angrily exposed massive mismanagement of taxpayer’s money in the administration of scholarships, awarded to beneficiaries to study abroad.
Benson is upset and yet to come to terms with why scarce resources were recklessly paid to individual beneficiaries and their families, to a point of taking care of their air tickets, visas, yellow fever, and monthly allowances all costing millions of pounds to the taxpayer.
“So for the four, their visas, yellow card, yellow fever card, tickets, comes to about 90,000 pounds. And every month, the three children, the husband, everybody, each, not all of them, each gets 8,160 pounds for supporting the mother to study”, she disclosed in an exclusive interview.
The mismanagement under the previous government, was supervised by the then Ghana Scholarship Authority (GSA) boss, Kingsley Agyeman, who now has a seat in Parliament as the lawmaker for the people of Abuakwa South in the Eastern Region, calling for his arrest and interrogation of matters arising.
“Do you think that is fair to the taxpayer of Ghana? And that is why NIB must move fast and make arrests and make people pay for this. People must refund”, she said.
Speaking publicly to the issue, she revealed how funds running into millions of pounds were made available to dependents of beneficiaries describing it as “rot”. Showing evidence of his claims, the Commissioner expressed disbelief and shock.
“These are documents from the Ghana Scholarship Secretariat, all these. And if you see the rot, if you see the rot in this, you will be amazed. All these are scholarship documents that I received from the Ghana Scholarship. Look, I cringed reading these documents. I cringed. The rot that happened under the former registrar”, she said.
Earlier, in May, the High Commissioner revealed bits and pieces of the information she was in possession of on her social media platforms when some students in the UK announced a planned demonstration and accused government of delaying payments of their fees and stipends.
Perusing the documents and providing the relevant information, Benson cited a clear case of a female beneficiary who she said named only as “Princess” was funded by the Authority and not only her but her entire nuclear family—-comprising husband and three children.
She said Princess was lucky enough to bew sponsored together with her family, relocating them to the UK while she studied while her family stayed with her at the expense of the state.
“She goes with her children, three of them. They are paid to come and stay with their mother to study. Why? And the spouse, the husband.” Asked if that is how it is done, she rebutted “That is how Kingsley Agyeman did it?” she informed one Dr Ren, the interviewer.
She additionally touched on another female beneficiary awarded with master’s degree programme with a stipends.
Just like the previous case, her three children and spouse benefited hugely from the scholarship as their airfare, visas, and yellow fever card tickets amounting to £90,000 were all paid for.
That is not all, she revealed “And every month, the three children, the husband, everybody, each, not all of them, each gets 8,160 pounds for supporting the mother to study”.
In her outburst, Zita Benson said it was unconscionable for the state to fund education of citizens in faraway London and their families included and catered for.
She said if such individuals were so minded and busy with family matters, they should have been offered the programme aback home at their preferred universities so that in the comfort of their houses they can live and do the courses.
Intrigued by the whole arrangement the first female High Commissioner to the UK said “And the question I ask this, was a man… Were the husbands not working that they could move to the UK to come and support their wives to study? No money share. And the husbands who also got it and came with their wives, the wives, what were they doing? So their children are moved out of school. One year, mother is coming to study. The whole family relocates. These are minors. And this is why the scholarship secretariat could not pay these debts. This is why they could not… Because the money was being channeled to other places”.
The representative of the President in the UK said, she had wanted to tackle the issues outside of the public space but she was pushed to come public.
She said the people she was working to ensure they are catered for by way of their fees and stipends are quick to go to the media to air their concerns and in the process try to pain an impression that, government is not cooperating hence her decision to explain herself and lay the facts bare.
“So I have to let the Ghanaian people know that whatever you are reading from the people who run to the media first, that is not the truth. This is the situation at hand we are dealing with.
And it doesn’t take a day to solve this. This thing is under investigation. So we will take our time to do it.
But for now, any payment that is made… Knowing what I know about PhD students who have completed… And are asking me for 40 month stipends with no intentions of going back. We will ensure that the law is enforced”.
In her previous series of Facebook posts, Benson cited what she described as several instances of “reckless” expenditure, including the payment of allowances, airfares and other benefits for spouses and children accompanying scholarship beneficiaries abroad.
She spoke about the beneficiary and her spouse and three children each receiving £8,160 in addition to the scholarship awarded to her, while the family’s airfare alone reportedly cost GH¢90,000.
“The spouse and children were paid £8,160 each to accompany the wife and mother to go study. That is different from the scholarship amount to the beneficiary. Why? We have hundreds of such cases,” she wrote.
The High Commissioner further claimed that money spent on dependants could have been used to settle outstanding tuition fees and living allowances for scholarship beneficiaries.
She alleged that more than £37 million in tuition fees and stipends accumulated between 2020 and 2025, while also questioning the award of a government scholarship to a 16-year-old to attend a private secondary school in the UK at a reported cost exceeding £56,000.
She cited another case in which the government allegedly spent GH¢90,420 on visa fees, tuberculosis screening and airfare for two students and the spouse of one beneficiary.
Responding to a planned protest by some Ghanaian scholarship students in the UK over delayed payments, Benson argued that the current administration inherited substantial financial obligations from the previous government.
“Those who want to come and protest tomorrow because government hasn’t paid your fees, you now know where your money went. You should have protested from 2020–2025 when they were not paying,” she stated.
She added that the government paid £3 million towards the arrears last year, has settled first-quarter payments this year and is processing second-quarter payments, insisting that the current administration is committed to clearing the outstanding debts while ensuring accountability.