A deepening scandal at Ghana’s Scholarship Secretariat has exposed allegations of massive financial mismanagement, with the country’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom accusing the former registrar of leaving behind a £35 million debt while simultaneously using public funds to fly scholarship beneficiaries’ entire families to the UK—all at the taxpayer’s expense.
The Debt That Keeps Growing
Ghana’s High Commissioner to the UK, Sabah Zita Benson, has publicly challenged former Scholarships Secretariat Registrar Dr Kingsley Agyemang—now Member of Parliament for Abuakwa South—over what she describes as years of reckless financial management.
In a Facebook post on December 6, 2025, Benson detailed the alarming accumulation of arrears:
· £1.23 million in 2021
· £2.3 million in 2022–2023
· £18 million in 2023–2024
· £14 million in 2024–2025
Total: £35 million. Of this, only £3 million has so far been cleared.
“He obviously wasn’t clearing these debts. This is a debt Mr Agyemang accumulated over five years, from 2021 through to 2025. Sometimes you just have to take responsibility and admit that you were reckless,” Benson said.
Benson further revealed that Loughborough University alone is owed approximately £500,000 for 17 Ghanaian students, with arrears dating back to 2022.
Families Flown to the UK—At Taxpayer Expense
But the financial scandal does not end with unpaid tuition fees. The current Registrar of the Scholarships Secretariat, Alex Kwaku Asafo-Agyei, has uncovered what he describes as a “deeply problematic” practice: the full sponsorship of dependents—including spouses and children—of scholarship beneficiaries.
“What has happened at the Secretariat is that when someone is awarded a scholarship, their wife and children are also added as dependents and that’s not even the sad part,” Asafo-Agyei said in an interview on Adom TV.
According to the Registrar, the Secretariat paid for visa fees, air tickets, and annual stipends for these dependents—all funded by Ghanaian taxpayers.
The Peter Mensah Case: A Family Package Worth Over £42,000
In one典型案例, Peter Mensah was awarded a scholarship in January 2022 to pursue an LLM in Law at Brunel University, London. The package included:
· £17,875 in tuition fees
· £16,008 per annum in living expenses for Mensah
· £8,160 per annum in living expenses for his spouse, Gifty Afia Oware-Mensah—the former Deputy Director of the National Service Authority
A sponsorship letter from the Secretariat, signed by the former registrar, confirmed: “The scholarship covers Peter Mensah and his dependents listed above and covers the student’s tuition fees of £17,875 and living expenses of £16,008 per annum. It also covers his dependent, Gifty Afia Oware Mensah, spouse, living expenses of £8,160”.
Her ticket to travel with her husband was also paid for by the Secretariat.
“What crime has the Scholarship Secretariat committed? While we have actual students whose tuitions and stipends are yet to be paid amidst their threats of demonstration, we have sponsored somebody and their entire family as if we are conducting an American lottery program,” Asafo-Agyei lamented.
The total cost for just this one family exceeded £42,000.
Students in Crisis: Hunger, Homelessness, and Deportation
The human cost of this mismanagement is devastating. An estimated 110 Ghanaian PhD students in the UK have petitioned British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer for intervention.
In a letter dated December 3, 2025, the students reported:
· 15 students have already been withdrawn due to unpaid fees
· 30 others have received no payment for the 2024/2025 academic year
· Stipend payments are overdue by between 5 and 48 months
· Students face hunger, homelessness, and mental distress
· Some have been deported after universities notified the UK Home Office
Some students have been forced to pay out of their own pockets to avoid deportation, while others cannot access university portals, submit theses, or obtain certificates.
British universities are now in negotiations with the Ghanaian government to recoup outstanding fees. Some institutions have locked students out of university systems, while others have stopped accepting new students through the scheme.
Agyemang Fires Back
Dr Agyemang has strongly denied the allegations, describing them as “misleading, politically motivated, and ignorant of the Secretariat’s longstanding financial framework”.
He insists he inherited a debt of GH¢230 million (approximately $54 million) when he assumed office in 2017 and that no student was ever sent home under his administration.
“Scholarship debt is continual and moves according to the academic year. Because tuition schedules often extend beyond the financial year, there is always an existing liability. This is not new,” he explained.
Agyemang also criticised Benson for discussing the matter publicly, saying: “Is this how Ghana’s liabilities should be discussed in the United Kingdom?” He appealed to President John Dramani Mahama to intervene diplomatically.
Arrest and Investigation
The controversy has now taken a legal turn. In May 2026, the Bureau of National Intelligence (BNI) invited Agyemang for questioning in connection with alleged scholarship-related fraud.
Although Agyemang denied reports of his arrest, stating he was merely invited and later released, the investigation remains ongoing. Benson has since labelled Agyemang’s tenure a “huge mess,” alleging he smuggled 50 students to Bangor University in 2025—after his party had lost power—leaving them stranded.
A Legacy of Debt and Distress
The new administration, which came to power in January 2025, now faces an estimated £39 million in scholarship debt. Hundreds of students remain in limbo, unable to graduate, while Ghanaian taxpayers question how public funds intended for education were diverted to fly entire families abroad.
As Benson put it: “We are not going to keep quiet about it while you walk around free and let the students suffer because you were reckless with your job”.
