The Public Relation’s Officer of the Ministry of Education, Kwasi Kwarteng is asserting that the revelation that a fraudulent payment for school placement was traced to the Education Minister’s login access is targeted at indicting the Minister.

According to him, it is evident that the interest of Manasseh Azure is to find the Minister complicit by all means.

Speaking to the host of JoyNews’ The Pulse, Blessed Sogah, Thursday, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Education said that, “It appears the interest is that get a big fish, indict him, make the story look big, and then maybe the investigative piece would have been seen, or the team would have been seen to have been probably doing a good work.”

He further explained that on Wednesday, February 8, he had conversations with Manasseh on the allegation against the Education Minister, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, and he made it clear that the position of the Ministry of Education was to not respond to the issue.

He added that this stance of the Ministry was taken because they believe that enough information and explanation regarding the fraudulent payment for school placement had been given to the populace.

Although Mr Kwarteng further disclosed that the Ministry had admitted to there being a possible abuse of the Minister's access to the school placement platform, he maintained that the allegations being levelled against Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum is to indict him by any means necessary.

He said, “It will be very simplistic to indict the Minister for Education, just on the basis that the general public came to him through persons… and that for that matter, some changes were made with regards to effecting a change in their wards’ placement.

“Very simplistic to conclude that the Minister’s access was used to effect a change. Then for that matter, one can indict him.”

Mr Kwarteng was reacting to a revelation made in an investigative report by The Fourth Estate on February 9, that some fraudulent payments made for the placement of a student into a category “A” school in 2022 was traced to the login access of the Education Minister, Dr Adutwum.

The report also stated that Prof. Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa, who was the Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES) at the time of the placement, disclosed this during a meeting of an investigative committee to look into claims of corruption in the school placement.

However, Mr Kwarteng acknowledged that there is a possibility that someone used Dr Adwutum’s login access to effect that change.