Residents of Zuarungu in the Bolga East District of the Upper East Region, Upper West Region as well as Jumapo in the Eastern Region have asked the Ministry of Education to compel the University of Cape Coast (UCC) to complete its abandoned Satellite campuses in their respective regions.
The residents, in separate interviews expressed disappointment about the way the University had neglected the Satellite campus projects initiated by the former Vice Chancellor, Prof. Domwini Dabiri Kuupole’s administration since 2016.
They alleged that the projects were awarded to various contractors and works started smoothly under the former Vice Chancellor have all been abandoned when a then new Vice Chancellor, Prof. Joseph Ghartey Ampiah took over the affairs of the university.
Some of them have questioned the reasons why the immediate past Vice Chancellor, Prof Ampiah decided to abandon such praiseworthy projects that the university started before he was appointed.
According to them, the issue of the abandoned projects by the University for the past few years now, has been a cause of concern to them and therefore, it was time for the Education Minister to step in and make sure those projects were completed to stop distance learning students from travelling from these regions to Cape Coast for educational reasons.
The residents also noted that completing those projects will not only give distance learning students their peace of mind but will also provide jobs for the locals within those areas.
They accused the University of causing financial loss to the state, for which those responsible must be made to provide answers and explain why the projects had been abandoned for the past five years.
When this portal visited the Zuarungu project site which was awarded to a contractor in 2015 at the cost of about GH₵ 13 million has since been abandoned even though it was 80 percent complete.
The huge three-storey building project which was almost at a completion level is now at the mercy of rains and has become a den for reptiles and over-grown weeds. A close look at it, showed some portions of it rotting gradually away.
According to the residents, reasons as to why the project which brought them smiles and hopes of also having a Satellite campus in their district have not been given to them and described the University’s action as unfair to the people of the area and the Bolga East District as a whole.
At Jumapo in the Eastern Region, another satellite campus which was also awarded to a contractor at a sum of over GH₵ 14 million and work was progressing smoothly has also been abandoned for the past four years now without reasons given to the residents.
The University was to build the three-storey regional study centre for continuing education students at Jumapo, near Koforidua, in the New Juaben Municipality.
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