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Education Ministry, Book Publishers Trade Accusations
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Education Ministry, Book Publishers Trade Accusations
The Ministry of Education and the Ghana Book Publishers’ Association (GBPA) are at each others’ throat, trading accusations and counter- accusations intended to question the Mills’ government commitment to printing basic school text books locally.
This development comes on the heels of the sudden backtracking of the Ministry of Education in giving local printing presses 40 percent of the total textbook contracts as earlier promised.
Now, the Ministry has cut down the quantity to only 20 percent from 40 percent of the over 23 million text books required by the basic educational level.The Minister of Education, Lee Ocran, told the press on tour of a couple of local press houses in Accra on Friday that the decision to cut down the quota of local printing from 40 percent to 20 percent was based on the concerns of the GPBA who met at the Ministry of Education on June 14, 2012.
According to the sector minister, the publishers complained that printing such quantities locally would shoot prices of the contract up because local book printing cost higher.“The complaints were coming from the publishers. Because they want more money, they are complaining,” said Mr. Ocran when he toured two out of three major printing presses in the country: Graphic Group, Buck Press and Sec-Print Printing Press.
However, when contacted by DAILY GUIDE, Fauna Ata-Frempong, President of GBPA, laid the blame squarely on the ministry, saying it was shirking its responsibilities.
According to him, the ministry decided to slash the initial quantity of textbooks meant for local printing because the ministry felt local printers were not competitive enough.
“On one breath, they say 40% in another, they say they cannot commit to uncompetitive printers,” Mr. Ata-Frempong told Daily Guide.
In his view, the ministry was only paying lip-service to ensuring the printing of local textbook even though it publicly indicated it would cede some of the printing jobs to local printers.
He noted that despite the planned printing policy, the Ministry of Education had failed to work out clear modalities for the effective implementation of the policy.
Local printing of text books in Ghana has become a major issue because most of the multi-million dollar contracts are shipped to Europe and Asia at the expense of local printers who are always up in arms against the Ministry of Education.
According to operators in the printing industry, they have more than enough capacity to print all the text books in the country.
Kofi Buckman, Managing Director of Buck Press, one of the biggest printing presses in Ghana, said his outfit could print up to 400,000 books within a day and make prompt deliveries of the finished product.
Ben Agyare-Kumi, Chief Operating Officer of Sec-Print, another top-tier press, said his facility could print up to 200,000 books in a day. According to him, local printers could deliver the kind of quality and reliability that government expects.
Ghana’s local printers are losing between US$100 million and US$ 250 million annually to cheap book imports from mainly Asia. This is because government has given publishers an attractive incentive to ship foreign printed books to Ghana. Duties on imported text books have been cut considerably from 35 percent to just about 5 percent, and this usually work in favour of foreign printers than local printers who still have to import paper at market rates.
The President of the GBPA said if government comes out clearly to define modalities that bind both local and foreign printers, its commitment to leveling the highly starved local printing presses would be welcomed.
“The rules should apply to both local and international printers,” he said.
By Raphael Adeniran
Source: Daily Guide/Ghana
