Ghana High Commissioner to UK Sabah Zita Benson Details ‘Reckless’ £37 Million Scholarship Spending

• Ghana's High Commissioner to the UK, Sabah Zita Benson, published official documents alleging financial recklessness in state scholarship awards
• A single PhD scholarship at Cranfield University provided living allowances for a husband and three children, alongside over GH¢90,000 in air travel costs
• Benson claimed funds spent on dependants contributed to unpaid fees and stipends that accumulated to over £37 million between 2020 and 2025

Ghana's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Sabah Zita Benson, has gone public with official documents alleging that state-funded scholarships were administered with gross financial irresponsibility under the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo administration.

The records, which Benson published alongside her remarks, centre on a scholarship awarded to an unnamed female recipient enrolled in a PhD programme at Cranfield University, covering the period from June 2021 to June 2024.

Beyond tuition fees of nearly £19,000, the award included living allowances exceeding £8,000 each for the recipient's husband and three children, as well as more than GH¢90,000 to cover air travel expenses.

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Ghana Scholarship Secretariat under scrutiny

In a report by GhanaWeb, Zita Benson made clear that the case was not an isolated incident within the Ghana Scholarship Secretariat.

She described the document as representative of a much broader pattern, stating that her office had identified hundreds of similar cases.

"The document below is just one example. We have hundreds of such cases. These monies that were spent on spouses and dependents of scholarship students could have been used to clear the annual tuition and stipends of students in the UK that accumulated to over £37 million from 2020 to 2025. Such RECKLESSNESS!" she wrote.

Unpaid fees piled up over dependants allowances

The High Commissioner argued that resources channelled towards spouses and children of scholarship holders should instead have been directed at clearing outstanding obligations to Ghanaian students already studying in the United Kingdom.

According to Zita Benson, unpaid tuition fees and stipends owed to students in the UK grew to over £37 million across the five-year period from 2020 to 2025.

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The disclosure raises serious questions about oversight and accountability within the Ghana Scholarship Secretariat during that period, and about the criteria used to determine what costs the state was obligated to cover under its foreign scholarship programme.

Ghanaian UK students demand unpaid scholarship funds

Earlier, YEN.com.gh reported that Government of Ghana-sponsored students at a university in the UK had accused officials at the Ghana High Commission in London of assaulting one of their colleagues.

The students said they had previously submitted a formal complaint to the Head of Education and Recruitment at the Ghana High Commission but had not received a response.

The group had called for an independent investigation into the alleged assault, the immediate settlement of all outstanding scholarship payments, and a public apology.

Source: YEN.com.gh