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There is tension at the Presbyterian Senior High School located at Tema Community 11 following an allegation of corruption against the headmistress of the school, Mrs Patience Tawiah Adjetey Nii Okpe.

The headmistress is alleged to have diverted some 350 bags of cement given to the school by GHACEM but have disappeared from the storeroom.

But Mrs Okpe has vehemently rubbished the allegation of misappropriation of the 350 bags of cement.

She told the Daily Heritage that the 350 bags of CEMENT have been used by the school.

Sources in the school, who agreed to speak to the paper on condition of anonymity, confirmed that some 200 bags of cement were given to the school in the first term of the 2016/17 academic year, as well as a second consignment of 150 bags to improve the structures in the school.

“This term GHACEM again gave us 150 bags of cement and again not even one was stored in the school. When she was asked of the whereabouts of the bags of cement, the headmistress said they were stored in the contractor’s house and when coming to work, he brings them. How on earth can this be?” the source retorted.

A source added that the Tema Municipal Assembly had given the school five street lights to be installed in the school for security and lighting, but she kept only three at the storeroom and claimed that the one who lobbied for the light asked for two.

Compulsory underskirt

The students, the source further said, were “made to buy an underskirt by force in form one because she had sown a dress with a very light and see-through material so that it would look like she was justified in selling the underskirt.

“The students’ canteen, when it rained, was destroyed by a storm in October last year, and when mentioned by the teachers, she said she was looking for sponsorship and cement to reconstruct it. Meanwhile she could have used part of the 200 and 150 cement bags given to us by GHACEM.

“The school doesn’t have enough classrooms for study and as I speak now the form one students are learning under trees in the school without even a black board or white board to write on for two good terms. Meanwhile the headmistress had converted the few classrooms we have into an air-conditioned headmistress office, storerooms, and a laboratory but without the necessary equipment.”

Death trap

The source further alleged that no form one class in the school is in a good classroom; “those that are not under trees are in uncompleted blocks started by GETFund, which is a death trap for both teachers and students.

“Every old student who comes to the school to do clearance for his or her results is turned back if that old student doesn’t pay GH¢ 100.00.”

Reaction

Reacting to the allegations, Mrs Opke told the DAILY HERITAGE that, “we have used” the first consignment of the 200 bags of cement to improve the structures of the school.

She also said the bags of cement were given to the contractor working in the school because, “we don’t have a storeroom so we kept them with the contractor and he has been bringing them and we have been monitoring them.

“We used them to convert classrooms into offices. The whole thing was a classroom; my office was the one my assistants are using now. I used it to convert this (her office) and then the general office you are seeing now.

“They (GHACEM) brought us 200 upon our request and later 150. We got the second consignment of 150 and then we removed the plywood and converted it so we can keep our files,” she stated.

The headmistress, who took over in 2013, added that some of the bags of cement were also used in plastering some of the converted offices and classrooms.

Where are the street lights?

On the issue of the streetlight, she confirmed that though the school received five, two had been given to the one who lobbied for them with the remaining three currently sitting in the newly converted storeroom for the school yet to be installed.

On the sale of underskirt, she said, “I realised that the girls, when they put on their uniform, it is very transparent and when parents come here and you tell them to buy the underskirt, then they go and buy under-knickers.

“There is a difference between the knickers and the skirt. So that is why I got a consignment and discussed it with the senior housemistress and they all agreed that we should keep it in the store so that when they come they buy it here, then they will know what it is, so when it got finished the lady was asking if she could bring more but I said no.

“I don’t make uniform, it is supplied by the government and they consider the prices given to them and based on that they also come out with the uniform,” Mrs Opke said.