The Youth Development and Empowerment Minister says Ghana is staring down a diplomatic embarrassment unless urgent steps are taken to settle a ballooning scholarship debt owed to institutions around the world.

“The current bill that I have is over ¢700 million in debt that we have to find money to pay,” George Opare Addo disclosed during an interview on PM Express.

He explained that this debt, which he inherited, stems solely from unpaid fees under the government’s scholarship programme.

“There is a debt of fees that we have across the world,” he said. “So my registrar now has to go around the world and negotiate with schools, and that is what we’ve been undertaking in the last four, five months.”

The situation, according to the minister, has become dire, with foreign institutions threatening to expel Ghanaian students.

“You keep getting threats all over the world, ‘We are going to sack your students’… Almost every time he’s out there, pleading, renegotiating how much we can afford and how much we can pay. And it’s become the norm, because that is what we inherited. Bad, bad, bad mess.”

Pressed on whether the government has the money to clear the ¢700 million, Mr. Opare Addo admitted that the funds are not readily available.

“It involves Ghanaian students; it involves lives. It involves our citizens. And so we must find the money to pay,” he stressed, adding that efforts are ongoing.

“The Chief of Staff has been very helpful. With the Finance Minister and the Chief of Staff, we are working closely to offset the debt… So yes, we will pay, but we have to negotiate.”

The minister acknowledged that the country’s credibility is at stake. “Does it affect Ghana’s international reputation as well? Yes,” he affirmed.

Over the past few weeks, affected students have raised concerns, with some institutions threatening to remove them.

“Some of the schools have written to them that they would have to leave their institutions, and if you are no longer schooling, you’ll probably have to be sent back home,” he confirmed.

Mr. Opare Addo was quick to note that the current administration should not be blamed.

“You can’t blame this government for the mess we inherited. And most of these things have been outstanding for a year or two,” he said.

He revealed that his ministry is auditing the records to determine the actual level of debt.

“It was a lot… a lot of the students have opted out. We held a meeting with some of them in London and gave them some options.”

Though he declined to discuss the options publicly, he said many of the debts are from stipends owed to students who had already completed their studies.

“Somebody might have finished school for two years and government still owes him or her stipends, but per the law, once you finish, you must come back home.”

He noted that some students wanted to stay abroad after their studies using a “no objection” letter to secure temporary work, a practice he insisted is not supposed to be standard.

“So we met some of them and asked, 'Is it that you want to stay? Because if you finish, you must come back. If I pay your fees, you must come back and help. So, do you want to stay? If you are going to stay there, I’m not going to pay your stipends, because you have done with school already,” the minister explained. “And a lot of them said, ‘Okay, let the stipends go’.”

He emphasised that the audit will help clean up discrepancies and provide a clearer picture. But for now, “the bill we have seated on our tables is in excess of ¢700 million.”