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The Minister of Information, Hon. Mustapha Hamid believes the opposing commentaries coming from the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) with regard to the Free SHS policy means they will discard with the policy when they regain power in the future.

According to him, the opposition NDC is simply confused about the implementation of the Free SHS policy because they did not believe President Akufo Addo was capable of doing it.

Reacting to the press conference by the Minority in Parliament on the Free SHS policy, Hon. Mustapha Hamid said on Okay FM’s Ade Akye Abia Morning Show that the NDC has nothing else to tell Ghanaians about the Free SHS, but just to lie that the policy is their [NDC’s] progressively free education they started in 2015.

“You know what the NDC people are saying are all lies and deception. Free SHS is a policy that NDC has opposed countless times and up to today, they still oppose the Free SHS policy”, he fumed.

He stressed that the NDC doesn’t know what to do about Akufo Addo’s vision-inspired policy which is why they are quick to state that they started it and that it is the same as their progressively free education policy.

“In their so called progressive, they pay Ghc 54 per day student and not boarders and even with the Ghc 54, they paid it only once in 2015. So if you pay Ghc 54 for only day students, what is progressive about it? What does it mean?”, he quizzed.

“This is not what we are doing; we are saying that by 2019 before the 2020 elections, every SHS student would have been covered by the Free SHS policy. Next year, SHS 1&2 will be covered in the policy and in the third year, it will be universal”, he explained.

Hon. Mustapha Hamid argued that this is how policies are started the world over; thus, nothing starts from the top but from the scratch as similar thing happened when 'O' and 'A’ LEVEL systems were converted to SSS by former President Rawlings in the PNDC regime.

“If you remember when we went to O’LEVEL and A’LEVEL and the PNDC decided to convert the system into SSS, did they convert O’LEVEL and A’LEVEL into SSS at a go? We faded off the old system gradually till the SSS completely took over; so this is how it is and it was former President Rawlings who changed the system. In the whole world, this is how new systems are implemented; they should tell me one country in the world which started a policy from the top. Everything starts from the beginning and ends at the top”, he argued.

He however advised the NDC to rather rally behind this good educational policy if they want to be recognized on the good side of political history insofar as this Free SHS policy is concerned.

“If they will stay behind to support the policy, Ghanaians will understand that in the future when NDC comes into power, they won’t cancel the policy but if they are fighting against the policy then they are telling Ghanaians that they will cancel it when they come into power”, he asserted.