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 (VC), Prof. Domwini Dabiri Kuupole’s administration since 2016.
They alleged that the projects were awarded to various contractors and work started smoothly under the former VC have all been abandoned when a the new VC, Prof. Joseph Ghartey Ampiah took over the affairs of the university.
Some of them have questioned the reasons why the immediate past VC, 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 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.
The Zuarungu project site which was awarded to a contractor in 2015 at the cost of about GH₵ 13 million showed that the project 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.
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 has also been abandoned for the past four years now without reasons given to the residents.
Incidentally, the 2020 Auditor General’s (AG) revealed that the UCC had abandoned 14 projects valued at GH¢78.9million, funded from Internally Generated Fund (IGF) – with most of them left for about eight years.
The report said seven of the projects, which were delayed and abandoned in the bush completion stages of between 87 and 99 percent, had damaged air-conditioners, broken windows, rotten door-frames and other forms of severe deterioration.
Further reviews disclosed that the University’s College of Distance Education spent almost GH¢3million on hiring conference rooms for training due to a five percent delay in completing a designated training centre – a training resort and conference centre at Agona Nyakrom for the university.
Some of the projects include construction of the School of Agriculture Complex; a 3-storey project for the School of Graduate Studies; Science Faculty Annex; School of Business building; student union complex; a 1-storey student study structure for School of Medical Sciences; a classroom block, administration block and library block, a laboratory and an estate road – all for the School of Medical Sciences, and many other projects outside the university campus.