Nov 05, 2012 at 2:42pm

Alliance for Accountable Governance (AFAG), a pressure group, has challenged President John Mahama to give the exact cost of training Ghanaian medical students in Cuba.

President Mahama at the IEA Presidential Debate in Tamale mentioned $5,000 as the cost per each student.

But AFAG at a news conference on Monday in Accra indicated that President Mahama whose office then as vice President handled the deal was economical with the truth.

The group’s President, Dr. Nana Ayew Afriyie said: “We think the President who went to Cuba to broker this deal, who actually saw off the students to Cuba the last day should have been on top of this issue and we are of the opinion that the President lied on this issue.”

He stated AFAG’s position on the President’s stance saying, “the only option is to come and apologise to the good people of this country so that we can move ahead; that the President should be on top of issues that if the President was not on top of issues as clearly shown by this document, it shows he was betrayed and if he was not briefed properly, Ghanaians were misinformed and the honourable thing to do is to apologise to the people of this country.”

AFAG was of the view that the Cuban scholarship awards were not regionally balanced.

He added that “the decision to train Ghanaian students in Cuba that will cost 5,000 million old cedis a year for one person was not cost effective and it is our position that the selection criterion was not regionally represented.”


By: Abdul Karim Naatogmah/Citifmonline.com/Ghana