Stranded students receive allowances

Some 10 Ghanaian students on the Government of Ghana scholarship who were stranded abroad due to non-payment of their allowances by the Scholarship Secretariat can now heave a sigh of relief as available information indicates that the arrears were paid last week.

Student sources in Macedonia said the outstanding allowances were paid on Friday, October 23, 2015, by the accountant from Ghana’s Embassy in Rome. They said the plane tickets for students who had completed their courses of study but who could not secure plane tickets to return home had also been given tickets.

Confirmation of payment

The Ghanaian Embassy in Rome, Italy, which has oversight responsibility for the payment of the allowances of the students in Macedonia, confirmed the payment and release of plane tickets to some of the students.

In a telephone interview with the Director of the Scholarship Secretariat, Mr Fuseini Lansah, yesterday, he said, “we have not only paid the allowances of the students in Serbia and Macedonia; we are also putting measures in place to ensure that in future, such an unfortunate situation does not recur”.

He said plans were advanced for the allowances to be released promptly so that students would have the peace of mind to concentrate on their studies.

Background
It would be recalled that the Daily Graphic carried a story on the back page of its September 24, 2015 edition that some 10 students on the Government of Ghana Scholarship in Macedonia, Serbia, Ukraine and Morocco were stranded.

The story said the students were owed allowances for over a year and that those who had completed their courses and were expected in the country by June, 2015 to do their national service could not do so because their plane tickets were not ready.

The paper reported that its checks at the Ghanaian embassy in Rome, which had the responsibility of paying the students’ allowance on behalf of the scholarship secretariat, revealed that no money had been credited to the embassy for that purpose.