Management of the Koforidua Polytechnic in the Eastern Region say they are now compelled to secure a bank loan to enable them settle outstanding electricity bills, which has left the institution without power for nearly a month.
Management had considered closing down the school as they spend close to 1,500 Ghana cedis daily on fuel for their power generating plant.
[contextly_sidebar id=”f0MUsaDA9RjoTWMmyG6KW91l5twUBbUI”]This they said is exerting immense financial pressure on the school.
According to the Registrar of the polytechnic, Mensah Livingston, all efforts to have the problem resolved have proved futile.
He said they can no longer rely on the Education Ministry’s promise to get the power restored.
“Since we have contacted the Minister and the Deputy Minister of Education and they told us that they have mentioned it to the appropriate authorities to have the power restored, we have haven’t seen anything and so we can’t keep waiting for them. So as management, we have met with the academic board and the board collectively decided that we should go for a loan. We don’t want the situation to get out of hand considering that new students are coming as well as continuing students who have reported. We have so far written two letters when this issue started but nothing has been heard so far”.
This will be the second time the institution which largely relies on government subventions, is resorting to loans to pay electricity bills.
“In November 2014, we were similarly disconnected by the ECG and we went for a loan of about Ghc 117,000 to pay, with the hope that if government pays back that money, then we will use it to settle the loan but that hasn’t happened and we are unfortunately paying the interest on that loan” he lamented.
ECG has somewhat flouted a cabinet directive asking utility providers to exclude educational and health institutions from their disconnection campaign.
The company has been on a rigorous campaign across the country to retrieve all monies owed it by various state institutions.
The exercise has seen the disconnection of power to many key state facilities.
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By: Ebenezer Afanyi Dadzie/citifmonline.com/Ghana