Three crucial Ghana Education Belief Fund (GETFund) initiatives of the College of Expertise and Utilized Sciences (UTAS), Navrongo, within the Higher East Area have been stalled for the previous 10 years affecting tutorial work.
These embody a 4-storey hostel facility for college kids, 4-storey laboratory advanced, a lecture corridor / workplace advanced, a state of affairs which is making it troublesome to confess extra college students into the college.
THE Vice Chancellor of UTAS, Professor Albert Luguterah, who disclosed these to The Ghanaian Occasions in an unique interview on Friday, blamed the difficulty on successive governments and contractors for the lukewarm perspective in getting the initiatives executed on scheduled.
Prof. Luguterah mentioned he was following up on the “unnecessary delays” in getting these main GETFund initiatives executed with the expedition it deserved to convey to an finish the continued ‘hullabaloo’ of restricted infrastructure constraining the profitable working of the college.
Describing the state of affairs as “extremely devastating,” he identified that the phenomenon had made the college, additionally known as C.Okay Tedam College of Expertise and Utilized Sciences (CKT-UTAS) underutilised, compelling administration to show down numerous functions from potential college students in each tutorial 12 months.
Moreover, he talked about that the development of a 4-storey hostel facility for college kids had been stalled alongside the road, forcing scores of scholars to trek miles from their non-public residence to entry lectures, every day.
He disclosed that the hostel venture, awarded to the Koddeg Ghana Restricted on March 3, 2024, was scheduled to be completed on August 31, 2025.
Based on him, the estimated GH¢4.28 million venture was solely 10 per cent full with the contractor abandoning the location in spite of everything efforts to safe the wanted funds to proceed the venture proved futile.
Additionally, the development of a 4-storey Laboratory Complicated, awarded to the Sunlu Ghana Ltd on November 11, 2016, Prof. Luguterah emphasised, had hit the rock, with the contractor demanding a revision of the contract and revaluation of the contract sum which is at the moment GH¢21, 499,577.33.
“You see, it’s unhappy that you simply award contract to a contractor which is just a few meagre 4 or 5 or so hundreds of thousands of Ghana Cedis, and due to the unnecessary delays, it balloons.
“So, regardless of all that the contractors have accomplished, the amount of cash they should end the venture is excess of the price of your entire venture, and it’s simply generally painful how we simply watch how Ghana’s cash is wasted,” he fumed.
Furthermore, he talked about different impeded contracts, corresponding to a 4-storey lecture corridor and workplace block which was awarded on contract on November 14, 2014, and was scheduled for completion on November 11, 2016, with an preliminary contract sum of GH¢3, 979,086.51.
He mentioned the inside roads of the college had been in a really deplorready state, a problem he said had posed challenges to the operations of the college.
FROM FRANCIS DABRE DABANG, NAVRONGO
