The Ministry of Education has dismissed claims by Member of Parliament for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, that the Akufo-Addo government intends relocating the satellite Donkorkrom campus of the University of Environment and Sustainable Development to Bunso near Kyebi, Nana Akufo-Addo’s hometown.
The former Deputy Minister of Education had alleged that the said relocation was without recourse to Parliament, although the house originally approved the construction of two campuses for the school at Donkorkrom and Somanya.
[contextly_sidebar id=”qtnwjM2eIKpc0dYABwhIs86DbV1zNemJ”]Speaking in an interview with Citi News, the former deputy Education Minister said, “the program which Parliament had already approved was that there will be two main campuses, the Somanya campus and the Donkorkrom campus in the Affram Plains area. The information I have, which is unimpeachable, credible, is that, this government has changed the second campus from Donkorkrom in Afram Plains to Bunso in Kyebi, and that is why they did not want to answer the question. The facility that this house approved in 2016 has to do with funding for two campuses, there is reasonable proximity.”
He said although he tried the seek clarification from the Education Minister, Matthew Opoku Prempeh on the matter, the former did not give details about the development, noting that “they know what they have done, which they are hiding from the people of this country,” hence the failure to disclose the move.
However, the Ministry of Education, in a statement, has denied these claims , saying “Ablakwa’s claim that an agreement had been reached to set up the university with Donkorkrom as one of its campuses and that government has reneged on it by relocating it to Bunso is completely false, preposterous and without merit.”
The statement further indicated that, the previous government rather reneged on this agreement by “bringing in a contractor from Brazil to do the work Exim Bank had been contracted to do. Exim Bank protested strongly against the breach of faith and decided to abandon the project as it did not intend to share the site with the Brazilian contractor.”
Background
The construction of the University was part of the Mahama administration’s vision to ensure each region in the country had a public university.
The Education Minister had told Parliament that the construction of the proposed Somanya Campus of the University would begin next month, but did not give details about the construction of the second campus.
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By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana