Mr Collins Offinam Takyi, the Tano South Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) has refuted allegations of awarding government’s scholarship to his relations, as circulated in some traditional and other social media outlets.
He emphasised such allegations were false, scandalous, malicious and defamatory.
According to him, it was a ploy ostensibly adopted by some detractors to dent his hard-earned reputation.
A statement signed by Mr Nicholas Opoku Agyemang, Special Aide to the MCE emphasised the need for the media to double check facts, and refrain from peddling lies, so as to deepen and consolidate the gains of the nation’s press freedom.
“Our attention has been drawn to malicious, scandalous, defamatory and false publications by a pseudo online news portal and it is an irrefragable fact that no news portal worth its sort would resort to mudslinging, tarnishing the reputation and casting aspersions on the integrity of people without doing further checks on stories been told about an individual or group of people.
“This in my estimation is a deliberate attempt by our political detractors to tarnish my hard earned reputation and to seek for equalisation”, it added.
It noted, “For the avoidance of doubt, Mr Takyi is the MCE for Tano South and does not work with any scholarship awarding institution where he can award a scholarship to himself, wife and children. Even though Tano South has ever awarded scholarships to needy students in the Municipality, none of his close family members has ever benefited as a principle set by me”.
The statement explained the MCE’s wife Mrs Joyce Offinam Takyi was a Principal Accounts Officer at one of the State's Technical Universities and she had never applied for a scholarship from anywhere throughout her pursuit of her MBA at Valley View University, Techiman Campus where she graduated in 2019.
“Mr Takyi has three children, two currently, a final year medical and third year Publishing students at KNUST and the youngest at JHS two. None of them has ever applied for any scholarship to Tano South Municipal Assembly or any District Assembly anywhere in Ghana, let alone been awarded a scholarship by any Assembly.
“However, to give meaning and take advantage of the numerous educational-centred policies initiated by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s government, when the President ordered Ghana Scholarship Secretariat to decentralise award of scholarships so that majority of students at the local level can benefit, we followed up closely.
“As ambitious as they are to pursue higher studies as Ghanaians, they applied on their own to the Ghana scholarship Secretariat through the Secretariat's online application portal, and were awarded scholarships just like tens of thousands of Ghanaians who have benefitted.
“It may interest you to know that Mr Suleman Rasheed Musah, NPP Constituency Secretary for Tano South, the son of the Constituency Chairman and the Financial Secretary of the Constituency, Mr Daniel Anane are all beneficiaries of President Akufo-Addo's initiative.
“In fact there were over 200 beneficiaries from Tano South alone for the President's initiative. We are therefore at a loss where the MCE is alleged to have awarded scholarship to himself, wife and children coming from."
The statement therefore called on the general people to treat the story with the contempt it deserves.