�Na university no wo he?� to wit where is the university promised us? This is what residents of the Brong Ahafo Region are asking the NDC government after waiting in futility to see the commencement of a public university that the region was promised.
The NDC, in the 2008 elections campaign, promised to establish two public universities in the Brong Ahafo and Volta regions to provide more access to tertiary education in the country.
President Mills, during an impressive sod-cutting ceremony in February this year, which was greeted with a lot of fanfare to commence the construction of the much touted University of Energy and Natural Resources in Sunyani, announced that the university would admit its first batch of students in September.
However, with all tertiary institutions in the country having begun the 2011/2012 academic year, there are no signs indicating the start of the much-talked-about university. The situation has dashed the hopes of residents of the region as well as prospective students who wanted to enrol in the university.
Interestingly, the proposed site where the sod-cutting took place is overgrown with weeds.
The intention of the government to turn the existing KNUST Faculty of Forest Resources Technology campus in Sunyani to pave way for the new university has also hit a snag as Parliament is yet to pass the bill that will establish the university.
When Daily Guide spoke to a cross-section of residents in the region, they expressed disappointment with the Mills administration�s failure to fulfil its promises.
The residents took a swipe at President Mills for playing with the intelligence of the people in the region after voting massively for him during the 2008 elections, based on the promise that the region would benefit from the construction of a new public university.
According to residents, the NDC government had taught them a bitter political lesson, adding that they would advise themselves appropriately during the 2012 general elections.
Residents said any attempt to change the name of the KNUST campus to the Energy University would be an insult to them because that was not what the NDC promised them.
According to them, the NDC, then in opposition, promised to establish a new public university for the region, but not to collapse an existing facility to make way for what the government had promised them.
A section of traditional authorities who also spoke to Daily Guide expressed their displeasure about how the Mills administration had treated the people in the region, accusing the government of making no effort to construct the new university.
They said though the chiefs in the region had earmarked several parcels of land at various locations for the project, the government had not provided any funding to start the university.
The opinion leaders said the chiefs conferred a chieftaincy title on the president during his recent tour of the region, thinking that would push the president to fulfil his numerous campaign promises to the region, prominent among them the establishment of the first public university in the region.
The proposed university is expected to have seven schools to be constructed in two phases. The first phase of the university will be sited in Sunyani with three schools, namely School of Natural Resources, School of Arts and Social Sciences and the Graduate School of Management and Sustainable Development.
The second phase will consist of four schools, namely the School of Engineering and School of Sciences to be situated on the Nsoatre and Sunyani campuses, while the School of Agriculture and Technology and School of Geo Sciences will be established at Dormaa Ahenkro.
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