Deputy Minister for Education, Rev. John Ntim Fordjour has indicated that the West African Education Council (WAEC) granted Kingdom Books and Stationary the sole right to publish past questions meant for free distribution to 2020 and 2021 candidates.

According to him, the company was settled on after an assessment of the criteria of what had to be done.

“They (WAEC) engaged among other publishers and kingdom Books was selected by WAEC and granted the sole right to be able to publish past questions and examination reports,” he said.

He added that the compiled and published booklet from Kingdom books does not only contain past questions but has other informative content.

“So it is not just past questions that were compiled, it is past questions and how it was answered, the lapses, critical areas to look at, the detailed examiners report on all the core subjects which were compiled.”

However, Executive Director of Africa Education Watch, Kofi Asare is of the belief that WAEC cannot select an entity to produce past questions.

“WAEC cannot select Kingdom books, the procurement entity in this arrangement is the Ministry of Education. So the procurement entity arrangement is the ministry of Education, no one should bring in WAEC here,” he stated.

According to Mr Asare, there are several publishers in the system who have been producing and compiling past questions, examiners marking schemes and reports in the country over the past 10 years therefore, “it is not likely that Kingdom Books would have been the only source of publishing.”

He indicated that the sole sourcing approach adopted by the government flies in the face of prudent procurement practices.

He added that the sole source procurement of past questions by a selected entity does not ensure value for money.

“Immediately you begin to go towards single-source procurement for a procurement you envisaged 12 months ago and budgeted for and the procurement that is not only available at a particular source then it means that you have already thrown it away. In the beginning, you did not intend to give consideration to the value for money,” he said.