Ghana’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom and Ireland, Sabah Zita Benson, has raised concerns over what she describes as excessive government expenditure on some Ghanaian scholarship beneficiaries who travelled to the UK to pursue postgraduate programmes.
Speaking on TV3’s Ghana Tonight on Wednesday, August 12, 2026, Ms Benson said her office had reviewed documents relating to three or four cases in which individuals awarded scholarships to study programmes such as Master of Business Administration (MBA) and Public Policy in the UK travelled with their spouses and children at the expense of the state.
She said the beneficiaries were enrolled in programmes that, in her view, could also be pursued at universities in Ghana.
“It is not just somebody. I have about three files or maybe four of such people who were brought in, a whole family. It could be the husband or wife gets scholarship to come and study and they are studying things like MBA or Policy that we are teaching in our universities,” she said.
Ms Benson said the beneficiaries received free tuition and stipends and, in some cases, were accompanied by several family members whose travel-related expenses were also covered by the government.
“Some of these families were as many as four children plus a spouse, five children plus a spouse, three children plus a spouse,” she stated.
According to the High Commissioner, documents and payment records reviewed by her office showed that travel agents were paid to facilitate the journeys, including the purchase of air tickets and other travel-related services.
“I can tell you for a fact. My eyes have seen the documents and the payments, I know the travel agents that was collecting these payments to buy tickets for them. It is just that I don’t want to put their name out there,” she said.
“We paid for whole families to move in with their parents and their spouses to come and study Master’s Degree. It is insane,” she added.
Ms Benson said the expenditure extended beyond tuition and included premium visa fees, air tickets, yellow fever cards and vaccinations for accompanying family members.
She further alleged that the government paid £8,160 for each family member who accompanied a scholarship beneficiary to the UK.
“They were not using ordinary visa and I can tell you for a fact that the UK Embassy charges 500 pounds for premium visas. So, we were paying for premium visas for these awardees and their families, we were paying for air tickets for all of them, and then we were paying for yellow fever card, vaccination and then we were paying 8160 pounds each to every family member that accompanied the awardee for coming to study one course that can be studied in Ghana,” she said.
The High Commissioner called for the recovery of public funds from beneficiaries who allegedly failed to undertake the studies for which the scholarships were awarded.
“Government should make them refund. They didn’t come and study, they didn’t get any scholarship, so government should make them refund everything including visa fees,” she said.
Ms Benson also called for investigations into the circumstances surrounding the expenditure and urged authorities to prosecute any persons found to have caused financial loss to the state.
She linked the issue to Ghana’s outstanding financial obligations to UK universities, saying the alleged expenditure had compounded the country’s debt of about £35 million owed to universities in the United Kingdom.
Her comments are likely to intensify calls for greater scrutiny of Ghana’s scholarship administration, particularly regarding the selection of beneficiaries, eligible programmes and the use of public funds for accompanying dependants.
