The Minister of Education. Hon Mathew Opoku Prempeh has dismissed claims by the minority in Parliament that the Akufo-Addo government intends relocating the main campus of the University of Environment and Sustainable Development to Bunso near Kyebi.
The minority in parliament 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.
Parliament has already approved the building of two main campuses of the university, the Somanya campus and the Donkorkrom campus in the Affram Plains area.
However, recent allegations by the minority and indigenes of Somanya suggested that government intends changing the main campus from Somanya in the Yilo Krobo district to Bunso.
Nonetheless, the Ministry of Education through the minister at the Meet The Press Series in Accra on Tuesday denied these claims, saying the contract remains unchanged and that Ghanaians should not be misled.
“The contract has not changed and will not change and as we go to Somanya, the contract that Ex-president Mahama’s government signed is what is being effected,” the minister enunciated, urging that “nobody must misinform Ghanaians while people learn to speak the truth since the records are there”.
Earlier, Hon Mathew Opoku Prempeh had described the allegations as “completely false, preposterous and without merit.”
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 minister who regretted what he called misinformation being fed the public in respect of the citing of the project said the contract for the construction of the facility was signed by the predecessor government and the university inaugurated three days before the handover of power to the new government.
While maintaining that the current government has not taken a single building outside Somanya, he said the loan agreement bordering on the contract can be verified.
“The Government of Ghana has not taken a single building outside Somanya and the contractors are in Ghana. The loan agreement can be made available and the issues were raised in Parliament where the Ministry submitted that contract where they (minority) realized that not even a dot is being changed in the contract,” he said.
He explained that another loan facility being offered by the South-Korean government will facilitate the construction of the Bunso project.
“Another loan agreement has been offered by the South-Korean government and that’s what is being used to put up the Bunso campus which will in way affect the Somanya campus,” he stressed.
Source: Joyce Bedeley/ritefmonline.org/jbedeley9357@gmail.com
