The Executive Director of the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), Mary Awulena Addah has questioned the timing of the introduction of the Free Senior High School (SHS) bill.

In an interview on JoyNews’ Newsfile on Saturday, June 15, she expressed her disagreement with the notion of a new government scrapping an existing policy merely because it was initiated by a previous administration.

She remarked, “I am surprised that we are having this discussion…. If you look at what we did, it is premised on the constitution and so it is interesting that we are now thinking about the law and why now. Just close to an election.”

Her comments came after the Majority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, announced on June 11 that the bill, if passed into law, would ensure the Free SHS policy remains binding on successive governments, preventing any future administration from discontinuing the policy.

• Read also: Parliament to introduce Free SHS bill to make it binding on successive governments

But the GII boss questioned why a legal framework wasn't established from the beginning if it was deemed necessary.

“If we wanted the law, why didn’t we from the formulation stage ensure that we have the law before we talk about policy and implementation?”

She urged the government to address the existing challenges within the policy before enacting it into law and emphasized the need for proper implementation of the Free SHS.

Executive Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), Sulemana Braimah also criticised the plan, describing the proposal to introduce a Free SHS law as a political idea.

He pointed out that even entrenched constitutional provisions can be amended, and a future government with a parliamentary majority could easily repeal such a law.

Mr Braimah argued, “So if the fear is that a new government will come and say we don’t want free SHS, it’s a matter of just repealing the law if they have a majority.”

Meanwhile, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Minority in parliament has refuted claims that they oppose the government's proposed Free SHS bill.